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No. 83 



Editors : 

HERBERT FISHER, M.A., F.B.A. 
Prof. GILBERT MURRAY, Litt.D., 

LL.D., F.B.A. 
Prof. J. ARTHUR THOMSON, M.A. 
Prop. WILLIAM T. BREWSTER, M.A. 



THE HOME mriYEESITY LIBEAKY 
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16mo cloth, 50 cents net, postpaid 
HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY 

Already Published 

THE DAWN OF HISTORY . . . By T. L. Myres 

RO^E By W. Warde Fowler 

THE PAPACY AND MODERN 

TIMES By William Barry 

MEDIEVAL EUROPE bJ H. W. C. Davis 

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION . By Hilaire Belloc, 

NAPOLEON By H. A. L. Fisher 

CANADA By A. G. Bradley 

THE COLONIAL PERIOD . . . By Charles M. Andrews 
THE WARS BETWEEN ENG- 
LAND AND AMERICA ... By Theodore C. Smith 
FROM JEFFERSON TO LINCOLN By William MacDonald 

THE CIVIL WAR By Frederic L. Paxson 

RECONSTRUCTION AND UNION 

(1865-1912) By Paul L. Ha WORTH 

THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND . By A. F. Pollard 
HISTORY OF OUR TIME (i885- 

191 1) By G. P. GoocH 

POLAR EXPLORATION (with maps)By W. S. Bruce 
THE OPENING UP OF AFRICA By Sir H. H. Johnston 

THE CIVILIZATION OF CHINA By H. A. Giles 
PEOPLES AND PROBLEMS OF 

INDIA By Sir T. W. Holderness 

A SHORT HISTORY OF WAR 

AND PEACE ..... 
MODERN GEOGRAPHY 



MASTER MARINERS . 

THE OCEAN 

LATIN AMERICA . . . 
GERMANY OF TO-DAY 
THE GROWTH OF EUROPE 



ByG. H. Ferris 
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Future Issues 

A SHORT HISTORY OF EUROPE By Herbert Fisher 

ANCIENT GREECE By Gilbert Murray 

A SHORT HISTORY OF RUSSIA By Paul Milyoukov 

FRANCE OF TO-DAY By M. Albert Thomas 

THE REFORMATION By Principal Lindsay 

ANCIENT EGYPT By F. L. Griffith 

THE ANCIENT EAST By D. G. Hogarth 

MODERN TURKEY By D. G. Hogarth 

THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE . . By N. H. Baynes 
HISTORY OF SCOTLAND . . . By R. S. Rait 
ALPINE EXPLORATION ... By Arnold Lunn 



THE WARS BETWEEN 

ENGLAND AND 

AMERICA 

BY 

THEODORE CLARKE SMITH 

PROFESSOR OF AMERICAN HISTORY IN WILLIAMS COLLEGE 




NEW YORK 
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 

LONDON 
WILLIAMS AND NORGATE 






COPTRIGRT, I9T4, 

BY 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 



4 



THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. 

JUL 17 1314 

©CI.A374841 



PREFACE 

The purpose of this volume is to show how 
social, economic and political causes led to a 
period of almost continuous antagonism 
between England and the American com- 
munities from 1763 to the ratification of the 
Treaty of Ghent in 1815. The war of Ameri- 
can Independence, 1775-1783, and the war 
of 1812-1815 give their names to the book, 
not because of their military or naval im- 
portance, but because they mark, in each 
case, the outcome of successive years of un- 
availing efforts on the part of each country 
to avoid bloodshed. With this aim in view, 
no more detailed study of the internal po- 
litical history or institutions of either country 
can be included than is necessary to account 
for different political habits, nor can the 
events of diplomatic history be developed 
beyond what is called for to explain persist- 
ent lines of action or the conclusion of a 
significant treaty. 

Theodore Clarke Smith. 

WiLLIAMSTOWN, MaSS. 

April, 1914 



CONTENTS 



CHAP. PAGE 

I Elements of Antagonism, 1763 9 

II The Contest over Parliaaientary Taxation, 

1763-1773 28 

III The Disruption of the Empire, 1773-1776 . 50 

IV The Civil War in the Empire, 1776-1778 . 75 

V French Intervention and British Failure, 

1778-1781 96 

VI English Parties and American Independence, 

1778-1783 113 

VII The Formation of the United States, 1781- 

1793 129 

VIII The First Period of Commercial Antagonism, 

1783-1795 148 

IX The Triumph of Democracy in the United 

States, 1795-1805 168 

X The Second Period of Commercial Antago- 
nism, 1805-1812 188 

XI The War for *' Sailors' Rights" and West- 
ward Expansion, 1812-15 215 



viii CONTENTS 

CHAP. PAGE 

XII The End of the Years of Antagonism, 1812- 

1815 236 

Bibliographical Note 249 

Index 252 



THE WARS 

BETWEEN 

ENGLAND AND AMERICA 

CHAPTER I 

THE ELEMENTS OP ANTAGONISM, 1763 

In 1763, by the Peace of Paris, England 
won a position of unapproached supremacy 
in colonial possessions and in naval strength. 
The entire North American continent east 
of the Mississippi River was now under the 
English flag, and four West India sugar is- 
lands were added to those already in English 
hands. In India the rivalry of the French 
was definitely crushed and the control of the 
revenues and fortunes of the native poten- 
tates was transferred to the East India com- 
pany. Guided by the genius of Pitt, British 
armies had beaten French in Germany and 
America, and British fleets had conquered 
French and Spanish with complete ease. 
The power of the empire seemed beyond chal- 
lenge. Yet within this empire itself there lay 
already the seeds of a discord which was soon 
to develop into an irrepressible contest, lead- 
ing to civil war; then, for a generation, to 
9 



10 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

drive the separated parts into renewed an- 
tagonism and finally to cause a second war. 
Between the North American colonies and the 
mother country there existed such moral, poli- 
tical and economic divergence that nothing but 
prudent and patient statesmanship on both 
sides of the Atlantic could prevent disaster. 

The fundamental source of antagonism lay 
in the fact that the thirteen colonies had de- 
veloped a wholly different social and political 
life from that of the mother country. Origi- 
nally the prevailing ideas and habits of the 
colonists and of the Englishmen who re- 
mained at home had been substantially the 
same. In England, as in America, the gentry 
and middle classes played a leading part dur- 
ing the years from 1600 to 1660. But by 
1763 England, under the Hanoverian kings, 
had become a state where all political and 
social power had been gathered into the 
hands of a landed aristocracy which domi- 
nated the government, the Church and the 
professions. In parliament the House of 
Commons, — once the body which reflected 
the conscious strength of the gentry and 
citizens, — had now fallen under the control of 
the peers, owing to the decayed condition of 
scores of ancient parliamentary boroughs. 
Nearly one-third of the seats were actually 
or substantially owned by noblemen, and of 
the remainder a majority were venal, the 



ELEMENTS OF ANTAGONISM 11 

close corporations of Mayor and Aldermen 
selling freely their right to return two mem- 
bers at each parliamentary election. In 
addition, the influence and prestige of the 
great landowners were so powerful that even 
in the counties and in those boroughs where 
the number of electors was considerable, 
none but members of the ruling class sought 
election. So far as the members of the middle 
class were concerned, — the merchants, master 
weavers, iron producers and craftsmen, — 
they were strong in wealth and their wishes 
counted heavily with the 'aristocracy in all 
legislation of a financial or commercial nature; 
but of actual part in the government they had 
none. As for the lower classes, — the labor- 
ers, tenant farmers and shopkeepers, — they 
were able as a rule to influence government 
only by rioting and uproar. Without the 
ballot, they had no other way. 

Owing to the personal weakness of succes- 
sive monarchs since the death of William III, 
there had grown up the cabinet system of 
government which, in 1763, meant the reduc- 
tion of the King to the position of an honorary 
figurehead and the actual control of oflSces, 
perquisites, patronage and preferment, as well 
as the direction of public policy, by the leaders 
of parliamentary groups. The King was 
obliged to select his ministers from among 
the members of noble families in the Lords or 



12 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

Commons, who agreed among themselves after 
elaborate bargains and negotiations upon the 
formation of cabinets and the distribution of 
honors. In this way sundry great Whig 
family "connexions," as they were called, 
had come to monopolize all political power, 
excluding Tories, or adherents of the Stuarts, 
and treating government as solely a matter 
of aristocratic concern. Into this limited 
circle a poor man could rise only by making 
himself useful through his talents or his elo- 
quence to one of the ruling cliques, and the 
goal of his career was naturally a peerage. 

The weakness of this system of government 
by family connection lay in its thorough de- 
pendence upon customs of patronage and 
perquisite. The English public offices were 
heavily burdened with lucrative sinecures, 
which were used in the factional contests to 
buy support in Parliament, as were also peer- 
ages, contracts and money bribes. When 
George III ascended the throne, in 1760, he 
found the most powerful minister in the cabi- 
net to be the Duke of Newcastle, whose sole 
qualification, apart from his birth, was his 
preeminent ability to handle patronage and 
purchase votes. That such a system did not 
ruin England was due to the tenacity and 
personal courage of this aristocracy and to 
its use of parliamentary methods, whereby 
the orderly conduct of legislation and taxa- 



ELEMENTS OF ANTAGONISM 13 
tion and the habit of public attack and de- 
fence of government measures furnished 
political training for the whole ruling class. 
Furthermore the absence of any sharp caste 
lines made it possible for them to turn, in ' 
times of crisis, to such strong-fibred and mas- 
terful commoners as Walpole and Pitt, each 
of whom, in his way, saved the country from 
the incompetent hands of titled ministries. 

This system, moreover, rested in 1763 on 
the aquiescence of practically all Englishmen. 
It was accepted by middle and lower classes 
alike as normal and admirable, and only a 
small body of radicals felt called upon to 
criticise the exclusion of the mass of tax- 
payers from a share in the government. Pitt, 
in Parliament, was ready to proclaim a na- 
tional will as something distinct from the 
voice of the borough-owners, but he had few 
followers. Only in London and a few coun- 
ties did sundry advocates of parliamentary 
reform strive in the years after 1763 to 
emphasize these views by organizing the 
freemen to petition and to "instruct" their 
representatives in the Commons. Natu- 
rally such desires evoked nothing but con- 
tempt and antipathy in the great majority 
of EngHshmen. Especially when they be- 
came audible in the mouths of rioters did 
they appear revolutionary and obnoxious 
to the lovers of peace, good order and the 



14 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

undisturbed collection of rents and taxes. 
Nothing but a genuine social revolution 
could bring such ideas to victory and that, 
in 1763, lay very far in the future. For the 
time conservatism reigned supreme. 

In the thirteen colonies, on the other hand, 
the communities of middle-class Englishmen 
who emigrated in the seventeenth century 
had developed nothing resembling a real 
aristocracy. Social distinctions, modelled 
on those of the old country, remained be- 
tween the men of large wealth, — such as 
the great landed proprietors in New York 
and the planters in the South, or the success- 
ful merchants in New England and the 
Middle colonies, — and the small farmers, shop- 
keepers and fishermen, who formed the bulk 
of the population, while all of these joined 
in regarding the outlying frontiersmen as 
elements of society deserving of small con- 
sideration. Men of property, education and 
"position" exercised a distinct leadership in 
public and private life. Yet all this remained 
purely social; for in law no such thing as an 
aristocracy could be found, and in govern- 
ment the colonies had grown to be very 
nearly republican. Here lay the fundamental 
distinction between the England and the 
America of 1763. In America a title or 
peerage conferred no political rights what- 
ever; these were founded in every ease on 



ELEMENTS OF ANTAGONISM 15 

law, on a royal charter or a royal commis- 
sion which established a frame of govern- 
ment, and were based on moderate property 
qualifications which admitted a majority of 
adult males to the suffrage and to office. 

In every colony the government consisted 
of a governor, a council and an assembly rep- 
resenting the freemen. This body, by charter, 
or royal instructions, had the full right to 
impose taxes and vote laws, and, although its 
acts were liable to veto by the governor, or 
by the Crown through the Privy Council, it 
possessed the actual control of political power. 
This it derived immediately from its con- 
stituents and not from any patrons, lords or 
close corporations. Representation and the 
popular will were, in fact, indissolubly united. 

The governor, in two colonies, Connecticut 
and Rhode Island, was chosen by the free- 
men. Elsewhere he was appointed by an 
outside authority; in Pennsylvania, Dela- 
ware and Maryland by the hereditary propri- 
etor to whom the charter had been granted, 
in all other colonies by the Crown. The 
councillors, who commonly exercised judicial 
functions in addition to their duties as the 
governor's advisers and as the upper house 
of the legislature, were appointed in all 
colonies except the three in New England; 
and they were chosen in all cases from among 
the socially prominent colonists. The judges 



16 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

also were appointed by the governor, and 
they, with governor and council, were sup- 
posed to represent the home government in 
the colonies. 

But in reality there was no effective im- 
perial control. The Crown, it is true, ap- 
peared to have large powers. It granted 
charters, established provinces by commis- 
sions, exercised the right to annul laws and 
hear appeals from colonial decisions, exacted 
reports from governors, sent instructions 
and made appointments and removals at 
will. But nearly all the colonial officials, ex- 
cept the few customs officers, were paid out 
of colonial appropriations, and this one fact 
sufficed to deprive them of any independent 
position. In nearly every colony, the as- 
sembly, in the course of two thirds of a cen- 
tury of incessant petty conflict, of incessant 
wrangling and bargaining, of incessant en- 
croachments on the nominal legal powers 
of the governor, had made itself master of 
the administration. The colonists resisted 
all attempts to direct their military or civil 
policy, laid only such taxes as they chose, 
raised only such troops as they saw fit, 
passed only such laws as seemed to them 
desirable and tied the governor's hands by 
every sort of device. They usurped the ap- 
pointment of the colonial treasurer, they 
appointed committees to oversee the ex- 



ELEMENTS OF ANTAGONISM 17 

penditure of sums voted, they systematic- 
ally withheld a salary from the governor, in 
order to render him dependent upon annual 
"presents," liable to diminution or termi- 
nation in case he did not suit the assembly's 
wishes. The history of the years from 1689 
to 1763 is a chronicle of continual defeat for 
governors who were obliged to see one power 
after another wrenched away from them. 
Under the circumstances the political life 
of the thirteen colonies was practically re- 
publican in character and was as marked for 
its absence of administrative machinery as 
the home government was for its aristocracy 
and centralization. 

Another feature of colonial life tended to 
accentuate this difference. Although re- 
ligion had ceased to be a political question 
and the English Church was no longer re- 
garded, save in New England, as dangerous 
to liberty, still the fact that the great ma- 
jority of the colonists were dissenters, — Con- 
gregational, Presbyterian or Reformed, with 
a considerable scattering of Baptists and 
other sects, — had an effect on the attitude of 
the people toward England. In the home 
country the controlling social classes ac- 
cepted the established church as part of the 
constitution; but in the colonies it had small 
strength, and even where it was by law es- 
tablished it remained little more than an 



18 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

oflficial body, the "Governor's church." 
This tended to widen the gap between the 
political views of the individualistic dissent- 
ing and Puritan sects in the colonies and the 
people at home. 

The American of 1763 was thus a different 
kind of man from the Englishman. As a 
result of the divergent development on the 
two sides of the Atlantic from a common 
ancestry, their political habits had become 
mutually incomprehensible. To the English- 
man the rule of the nobility was normal — the 
ideal political system. He was content, if a 
commoner, with the place assigned him. To 
the colonist, on the other hand, government 
in which the majority of adult male inhabi- 
tants possessed the chief power was the only 
valid form, — all others were vicious. Patriot- 
ism meant two contradictory things. The 
Englishman's patriotism was sturdy but un- 
enthusiastic, and showed itself almost as 
much in a contempt for foreigners as in 
complacency over English institutions. The 
colonist, on the contrary, had a double allegi- 
ance: one conventional and traditional, to 
the British crown; the other a new, intensely 
local and narrow attachment to his province. 
England was still the "old home," looked to 
as the source of political authority, of man- 
ners and literature. It was for many of 
the residents their recent abode and, for all 



ELEMENTS OF ANTAGONISM 19 

except a few of Dutch, German or French 
extraction, their ancestral country. But 
already this "loyalty" on the part of the 
colonists was dwindling into something more 
sentimental than real. The genuine local 
patriotism of the colonists was shown by 
their persistent struggle against the repre- 
sentatives of English authority in the gover- 
nors' chairs. There had developed in Amer- 
ica a new sort of man, an "American," who 
wished to be as independent of government as 
possible, and who, while professing and no 
doubt feeling a general loyalty to England, 
was in fact a patriot of his own colony. 

On the other side of the Atlantic, the 
colonists entered very slightly into the 
thoughts of the English noblemen and 
gentry. They were regarded in a highly 
practical way, without a trace of any senti- 
ment, as members of the middle and lower 
classes, not without a large criminal admix- 
ture, who had been helped and allowed to 
build up some unruly and not very admir- 
able communities. Nor did the English 
middle classes look upon the colonists with 
much f interest, or regard them as, on the 
whole, their equals. The prevailing colonial 
political habits, as seen from England, sug- 
gested only unwarrantable wrangling indica- 
tive of political incompetence and a spirit 
of disobedience. Loyalty, to an English- 



20 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

man, meant submission to the law. To men 
trained in such different schools words did 
not mean the same thing. The time had 
come when the two peoples were scarcely 
able to understand each other. 

A second cause for antagonism, scarcely 
less fundamental and destined to cause equal 
irritation, is to be found in the conflict be- 
tween the economic life of the American 
communities and the beliefs of the mother 
country concerning commercial and naval 
policy. Great Britain, in 1763, was predomi- 
nantly a trading country. Its ships carried 
goods for all the nations of Europe and 
brought imports to England from all lands. 
Although the manufacturers were not yet 
in possession of the new inventions which 
were to revolutionize the industries of the 
world, they were active and prosperous in 
their domestic production of hardware and 
textiles, and they furnished cargoes for the 
shipowners to transport to all quarters. To 
these two great interests of the middle 
classes, banking and finance were largely 
subsidiary. Agriculture, the mainstay of 
the nobility and gentry, continued to hold 
first place in the interests of the governing 
classes, but the importance of all sources of 
wealth was fully recognized. 

In the colonies, on the contrary, manufac- 
turing scarcely existed beyond the domestic 



ELEMENTS OF ANTAGONISM 21 

production of articles for local use, and the 
inhabitants relied on importations for nearly 
all finished commodities and for all luxuries. 
Their products were chiefly things which 
England could not itself raise, such as sugar 
in the West Indies; tobacco from the islands 
and the southern mainland colonies; indigo 
and rice from Carolina; furs, skins, masts, 
pine products; and, from New England, above 
all, fish. The natural market for these 
articles was in England or in other colonies, 
and in return the manufactures of England 
found their natural market in the new com- 
munities. When the Economic Revolution 
transformed industry, and factories, driven 
by steam, made England the workshop of the 
world, the existing tendency for England to 
supply America with manufactured products 
was intensified regardless of the political 
separation of the two countries. Not until 
later economic changes supervened was this 
normal relationship altered. 

The traditional British policy in 1763 was 
that of the so-called Mercantile System, 
which involved a thoroughgoing application 
of the principle of protection to the British 
shipowner, manufacturer and corn-grower 
against any competition. An elaborate tariff, 
with a system of prohibitions and bounties, 
attempted to prevent the landowner from 
being undersold by foreign corn, and the 



n ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

manufacturer from meeting competition from 
foreign producers. Navigation acts shut out 
foreign-built, -owned or -manned ships from 
the carrying trade between any region but 
their heme country and England, reserving all 
other commerce for British vessels. Into this 
last restriction there entered another purely 
political consideration, namely, the perpetu- 
ation of a supply of mariners for the British 
navy, whose importance was fully recog- 
nized. So far as the colonies were concerned 
they were brought within the scope of mer- 
cantilist ideas by being considered as sources 
of supply for England in products not possible 
to raise at home, as markets which must be 
reserved for English manufacturers and 
traders, and as places which must not be 
allowed to develop any rivalry to British pro- 
ducers. Furthermore they were so situated 
that by proper regulations they might serve 
to encourage English shipping even if this 
involved an economic loss. 

The Navigation Acts accordingly, from 
1660 to 1763, endeavored to put this theory 
into operation and excluded all foreign ves- 
sels from trading with the colonies, pro- 
hibited any trade to the colonies except from 
English ports and enumerated certain com- 
modities, — sugar, cotton, dye woods, indigo, 
rice, furs, — which could be sent only to Eng- 
land. To ensure the carrying out of these 



ELEMENTS OF ANTAGONISM 23 

laws an elaborate system of ibonds and local 
duties was devised and customs officers were 
appointed, resident in the colonies, while 
governors were obliged to take oath to enforce 
the acts. As time revealed defects or un- 
necessary stringencies, the restrictions were 
frequently modified. The Carolinas, for 
instance, were allowed to ship rice not only 
to England but to any place in Europe south 
of Cape Finisterre. Bounties were estab- 
lished to aid the production of tar and tur- 
pentine, but special acts prohibited the 
export of hats from the colonies, or the manu- 
facture of rolled iron, in order to check a 
possible source of competition to English 
producers. In short, the Board of Trade, the 
administrative body charged with the over- 
sight of the plantations, devoted its energies 
to suggesting devices which should aid the 
colonists, benefit the British consumer and 
producer and increase "navigation." 

It does not appear that the Acts of Trade 
were, in general, a source of loss to the colo- 
nies. Their vessels shared in the privileges 
reserved for British-built ships. The com- 
pulsory sending of the enumerated com- 
modities to England may have damaged the 
tobacco-growers, but in other respects it did 
little harm. The articles would have gone 
to England anyway. The restriction of im- 
portation to goods from England was no 



24 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

great grievance, since English products would, 
in any case, have supplied the American 
market. Even the effort, by an act of 1672, 
to check intercolonial trade in enumerated 
commodities was not oppressive, for, with 
one exception noted below, there was no 
great development of such a trade. By 1763, 
according to the best evidence, the thirteen 
colonies seem to have adjusted their habits 
to the Navigation Acts and to have been 
carrying on their flourishing commerce with- 
in these restrictions. 

To this general condition, however, there 
were some slight exceptions, and one serious 
one. The colonists undoubtedly resented 
the necessity of purchasing European prod- 
ucts from English middlemen, and were 
especially desirous of importing Spanish and 
Portuguese wines and French brandies di- 
rectly. Smuggling in these articles seems to 
have been steadily carried on. Much more 
important, — and to the American ship- 
owners the kernel of the whole matter, — was 
the problem of the West India trade. It 
was proved, as the eighteenth century pro- 
gressed, that the North American colonies 
could balance their heavy indebtedness to 
the mother country for excess of imports over 
exports only by selling to the French, as well 
as the British West Indies, barrel staves, 
clapboards, fish and food products. In re- 



ELEMENTS OF ANTAGONISM 25 

turn they took sugar and molasses, develop- 
ing in New England a flourishing rum manu- 
facture, which in turn was used in the African 
slave trade. By these means the people of 
the New England and Middle colonies built 
up an active commerce, using their profits 
to balance their indebtedness to England. 
This "triangular trade" disturbed the Brit- 
ish West India planters, who, being largely 
non-residents and very influential in London, 
induced Parliament, in 1733, to pass an act 
imposing prohibitory duties on all sugar 
and molasses of foreign growth. This law, 
if enforced, would have struck a damaging 
blow at the prosperity of the Northern 
colonies, merely to benefit the West India 
sugar-growers by giving them a monopoly; 
but the evidence goes to show that it was 
systematically evaded and that French sugar, 
together with French and Portuguese wines, 
was still habitually smuggled into the colo- 
nies. Thus the Navigation Acts, in the 
only points where they would have been 
actually oppressive, were not enforced. The 
colonial governors saw the serious conse- 
quences and shrank from arousing discon- 
tent. It is significant that the same colonists 
who contended with the royal governors did 
not hesitate to violate a parliamentary law 
when it ran counter to their interests. 

The only reason why the radical difference 



26 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

between the colonies and the home govern- 
ment did not cause open conflict long before 
1763 is to be found in the absorption of the 
English ministries in parliamentary manoeu- 
vring at home, diplomacy and European 
wars abroad. The weakness of the imperial 
control was recognized and frequently com- 
plained of by governors. Boards of Trade 
and other officials; but so long as the colonies 
continued to supply the sugar, furs, lumber 
and masts called for by the acts, bought 
largely from English shippers and manu- 
facturers, and stimulated the growth of 
British shipping, the Whig and Tory noble- 
men were contented. The rapidly growing 
republicanism of the provincial and proprie- 
tary governments was ignored and allowed 
to develop unchecked. A half -century of 
complaints from thwarted governors, teem- 
ing with suggestions that England ought to 
take the government of the colonies into its 
own hands, produced no results beyond 
creating in official circles an opinion unfav- 
orable to the colonists. 

In the years of the French war, 1754-1760, 
the utter incompatibility between imperial 
theories on the one hand and colonial politi- 
cal habits on the other, could no longer be 
disregarded. In the midst of the struggle, 
the legislatures continued to wrangle with 
governors over points of privilege; they 



ELEMENTS OF ANTAGONISM 27 
were slow to vote supplies; they were dila- 
tory in raising troops; they hung back frona a 
jealous fear that their neighbor colonies 
might fail to do their share; they were ready 
to let British soldiers do all the hard fighting. 
Worse still, the colonial shipowners persisted 
in their trade with the French and Spanish 
West Indies, furnishing their enemies with 
supplies, and buying their sugar and molasses 
as usual. When in Boston Writs of Assist- 
ance were employed by the customs officials, 
in order that by a general power of search 
they might discover such smuggled prop- 
erty, the merchants protested in the courts, 
and James Otis, a fiery young lawyer, boldly 
declared the Writs an infringement of the 
rights of the colonists, unconstitutional and 
beyond the power of Parliament to authorize. 
To ministers, engaged in a tremendous war 
for the overthrow of France, the behavior 
of the colonies revealed a spirit scarcely short 
of disloyalty, and a weakness of government 
no longer to be tolerated. The Secretaries, 
the Board of Trade, the customs officials, 
army officers, naval commanders, colonial 
governors and judges all agreed that the 
time had come for a thorough and drastic 
reform. They approached the task accord- 
ingly, purely and simply as members of the 
English governing class, ignorant of the 
colonists' political ideas and totally indiffer- 



28 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

ent to their views, and their measures were 
framed in the spirit of unquestioning ac- 
ceptance of the principles of the Acts of 
Trade as a fundamental national policy. 

CHAPTER II 

THE CONTEST OVER PARLIAMENTARY TAXA- 
TION, 1763-1773 

The prime minister responsible for the 
new colonial policy was George Grenville, 
who assumed his position in May, 1763, 
shortly after the final treaty of Paris. Every 
other member of his cabinet was a nobleman, 
Grenville himself was brother to an earl, and 
most of them had had places in preceding 
ministries. It was a typical administration 
of the period, completely aristocratic in 
membership and spirit, quite indifferent to 
colonial views and incapable of compre- 
hending colonial ideals even if they had 
known them. To them the business in hand 
was a purely practical one, and with con- 
fident energy Grenville pushed through a 
series of measures, which had been carefully 
worked out, of course, by minor officials un- 
known to fame, during the preceding months, 
but which were destined to produce results 
undreamed of by anyone in England. 

In the first place a number of measures 



PARLIAMENTARY TAXATION 29 

endeavored to strengthen and revivify the 
Acts of Trade. Colonists were given new 
privileges in the whale fishery, hides and 
skins were "enumerated," and steps were 
taken to secure a more rigorous execution 
of the acts by the employment of naval 
vessels against smuggling. A new Sugar 
Act reduced the tariff on foreign sugar to such 
a point that it would be heavily protective 
without being prohibitive, and at the same 
time imposed special duties on Portuguese 
wines while providing additional machinery 
for collecting customs. This was clearly 
aimed at the weak point in the existing navi- 
gation system, but it introduced a new fea- 
ture, for the sugar duties, unlike previous ones, 
were intended to raise a revenue, and this, it 
was provided in the act, should be used to 
pay for the defence of America. 

A second new policy was inaugurated in a 
proclamation of October, 1763, which erected 
Florida and Canada into despotically gov- 
erned provinces and set off all the land west 
of the head- waters of the rivers running into 
the Atlantic as an Indian reservation. No 
further land grants were to be made in that 
region, nor was any trade to be permitted 
with the Indians save by royal license. The 
Imperial government thus assumed control 
of Indian policy and endeavored to check any 
further growth of the existing communities 



30 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

to the west. Such a scheme necessitated the 
creation of a royal standing army in America 
on a larger scale than the previous garrisons, 
and this plan led to the third branch of the 
new policy, which contemplated the positive 
interposition of Parliament to remedy the 
shortcomings of colonial assemblies. An 
act of 1764 prohibited the future issue of any 
paper money by any colony, thus terminat- 
ing one of the chief grievances of British 
governors and merchants. But still more 
striking was an act of 1765, which provided 
with great elaboration for the collection of a 
stamp tax in the colonies upon all legal docu- 
ments, newspapers and pamphlets. The 
proceeds were to be used to pay about one- 
third of the cost of the new standing army, 
which was to consist of ten thousand men. 
Taken in connection with the announced in- 
tention of using the revenue from the Sugar 
Act for the same purpose it is obvious that 
Grenville's measures were meant to relieve 
the Imperial government from the necessity 
of depending in future upon the erratic and 
unmanageable colonial legislatures. They 
were parts of a general political and financial 
program. There is not the slightest evidence 
that Grenville or his associates dreamed that 
they were in any way affecting the colonists' 
rights or restricting their liberties. Grenville 
did consult the colonial agents, — Individ- 



PARLIAMENTARY TAXATION 31 

uals authorized to represent the colonial 
assemblies in England, — but simply with a 
view to meeting practical objections. The 
various proclamations or orders were issued 
without opposition and the bills passed 
Parliament almost unnoticed. The British 
governing class was but slightly concerned 
with colonial reform: the Board of Trade, 
the colonial officials and the responsible 
ministers were the only people interested. 

To the astonishment of the cabinet and 
of the English public the new measures, 
especially the Sugar Act and the Stamp Act, 
raised a storm of opposition in the colonies 
unlike anything in their history. The reasons 
are obvious. If the new Sugar Act was to be 
enforced it meant the end of the flourishing 
French West India intercourse and the death 
of the "triangular" trade. Every distiller, 
shipowner and exporter of fish, timber or 
grain, felt himself threatened with ruin. If 
the Stamp Act were enforced it meant the 
collection of a tax from communities already 
in debt from the French wars, which were 
in future to be denied the facile escape from 
heavy taxes hitherto afforded by bills of 
credit. But the economic burdens threatened 
were almost lost sight of in the political 
dangers. If England meant to impose taxes 
by parliamentary vote for military purposes 
instead of calling upon the colonists to fur- 



32 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

nish money and men, it meant a deadly blow 
to the importance of the assemblies. They 
could no longer exercise complete control 
over their property and their finances. They 
would sink to the status of mere municipal 
bodies. So far as the Americans of 1765 
were concerned the feeling was universal that 
such a change was intolerable, that if they 
ceased to have the full power to give or with- 
hold taxes at their discretion they were 
practically slaves. 

In every colony there sprang to the front 
leaders who voiced these sentiments in im- 
passioned speeches and pamphlets; for the 
most part young men, many of them law- 
yers accustomed to look for popular approval 
in resisting royal governors. Such men as 
James Otis and Samuel Adams in Massa- 
chusetts, William Livingston in New York, 
Patrick Henry in Virginia, Christopher Gads- 
den in South Carolina denounced the Stamp 
Act as tyrannous, unconstitutional, and an 
infringement on the liberties of the colonists. 
Popular anger rose steadily until, in the au- 
tumn, when the stamps arrived, the people 
of the thirteen colonies had nerved themselves 
to the pitch of refusing to obey the act. 
Under pressure from crowds of angry men 
every distributor was compelled to resign, 
the stamps were in some cases destroyed, and 
in Boston the houses of unpopular officials 



PARLIAMENTARY TAXATION 33 

were mobbed and sacked. Before the excite- 
ment the governors stood utterly helpless. 
They could do nothing to carry out the act. 

In October, delegates representing nearly 
all the colonies met at New York and drafted 
resolutions expressing their firm belief that 
no tax could legally be levied upon them but 
by their own consent given through their 
legislatures. It was the right of English- 
men not to be taxed without their consent. 
Petitions in respectful but determined lan- 
guage were sent to the Eang and to Parlia- 
ment, praying for the repeal of the Stamp 
Act and the Sugar Act. For the first time 
in their history the colonies stood together 
in full harmony to denounce and reject an 
act passed by Parliament. As a social and 
political fact this unanimous demonstration 
of colonial feeling was of profound signifi- 
cance. The ease and ability with which the 
lawyers, planters, farmers or merchants 
directed the popular excitement into effec- 
tive channels showed the widespread political 
education of the Americans. A not dissimilar 
excitement in London in the same years 
found no other means of expressing itself 
than bloody rioting. It was American re- 
publicanism showing its strongest aspect in 
political resistance. 

The issue thus presented to the British 
government was one demanding the most 



34 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

careful consideration and far-seeing wisdom 
in its treatment. Grenville's measures, how- 
ever admirable and reasonable in themselves, 
had stirred the bitter opposition of all the 
colonists, and the enforcement or modifica- 
tion of them called for steadiness and courage. 
Were the English governing noblemen of 
the day ready to persist in the new policy? 
If so, it meant violent controversy and pos- 
sibly colonial insurrection; but the exertion 
of British authority, if coupled with strong 
naval pressure, ought to prevail. Angry as 
the colonists were, their language indicates 
that revolution was not in their thoughts; 
and if there was one quality beyond all 
others in which the British aristocracy ex- 
celled it was an inflexible tenacity when 
once a policy was definitely embraced. Un- 
fortunately for both sides, the clear-cut issue 
thus raised was obscured and distorted by 
the presence of an ambitious young prince on 
the throne with a policy which threw Eng- 
lish domestic affairs into unexampled con- 
fusion. 

George III, obstinate, narrow-minded and 
determined to make his own will felt in the 
choice of ministers and the direction of af- 
fairs, had succeeded his grandfather in 1760. 
Too astute to violate the fast-bound tradition 
of the English constitution that he must gov- 
ern only through ministers, he saw that to 



PARLIAMENTARY TAXATION 35 

have his own way he must secure political 
servants who, while acting as cabinet min- 
isters, should take their orders from him. He 
also saw that to destroy the hold of the Whig 
family cliques he must enter politics himself 
and buy, intimidate and cajole in order to win 
a following for his ministers in parliament. 
With this ideal in view he subordinated 
all other considerations to the single one of 
getting subservient ministers and fought or 
intrigued against any cabinet which did not 
accept his direction, until, in 1770, he finally 
triumphed; but in the meantime he had 
kept England under a fluctuating succession 
of ministries which forbade the maintenance 
of any coherent or authoritative colonial 
policy such as alone could have prevented 
disaster. 

In 1761 George III tried to induce Parlia- 
ment to accept the leadership of the Earl 
of Bute, his former tutor, who had never 
held public office; but his rapid rise to the 
premiership aroused such jealousy among 
the nobility and such unpopularity among 
the people, that the unfortunate Scot quailed 
before the storm of ridicule and abuse. He 
resigned in 1763 and was succeeded by Gren- 
ville, who instantly showed George III that he 
would take no dictation. On the contrary, 
he drove the King to the point of fury by his 
masterfulness. In desperation George then 



36 ENGLISH AND AJVIERICAN WARS 

turned to the Marquis of Rockingham who, 
if equally determined to decline royal dicta- 
tion, was personally less offensive to him, and 
there came in a ministry of the usual type, 
all noblemen but two minor members, and 
all belonging to different "connexions" from 
those of the Grenville ministry. Thus it was 
that when the unanimous defiance of the 
Americans reached England, the ministers 
responsible for the colonial reforms were out 
of office and the Rockingham Whigs had 
assumed control, feeling no obligation to 
continue anything begun by their predeces- 
sors. George Ill's interposition was re- 
sponsible for this situation. 

When Parliament met in January, 1766, 
the colonists received powerful allies, first 
in the British merchants who petitioned 
against the act as causing the practical 
stoppage of American purchases, and second 
in William Pitt who, in a burning speech, 
embraced in full the colonists' position, and 
declared that a parliamentary tax upon the 
plantations was absolutely contrary to the 
rights of Englishmen. He "rejoiced that 
America has resisted." This radical posi- 
tion found few followers, but the Whig 
ministry, after some hesitation, decided to 
grant the colonial demands while insisting 
on the imperial rights of Parliament. This 
characteristically English action was highly 



PARLIAMENTARY TAXATION 37 

distasteful to the majority in the House of 
Lords, who voted to execute the law, and to 
George III, who disliked to yield to mutinous 
subjects; but they were forced to give way. 
The Stamp Act was repealed, and the sugar 
duties reduced to a low figure. At the same 
time a Declaratory Act was passed, asserting 
that Parliament had full power to bind the 
colonies "in all cases whatsoever." Thus the 
Americans had their way in part while sub- 
mitting to seeing their arguments rejected. 
The consequences of this unfortunate 
affair were to bring into sharp contrast the 
difference between the British and the Ameri- 
can view of the status of the colonies. The 
former considered them as parts of the realm, 
subject like any other part to the legislative 
authority of King, Lords and Commons. The 
contention of the colonists, arising naturally 
from the true situation in each colonial gov- 
ernment, that the rights of Englishmen 
guaranteed their freedom from taxation 
without representation, was answered by the 
perfectly sound legal assertion that the 
colonists, like all the people of England, 
were "virtually" represented in the House 
of Commons. The words, in short, meant 
one thing in England, another thing in 
America. English speakers and writers 
pointed to the scores of statutes affecting 
the colonies, calling attention especially to 



38 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

the export duties of the Navigation Act of 
1672, and the import duties of the act of 
1733, not to mention its revision of 1764. 
Further, Parliament had regulated provincial 
coinage and money, had set up a postal 
service and established rates. Although 
Parliament had not imposed any such tax 
as the Stamp Act, it had, so far as precedent 
showed, exercised financial powers on many 
occasions. 

To meet the British appeal to history the 
colonists developed the theory that com- 
mercial regulation, including the imposition 
of customs duties, was "external" and 
hence lay naturally within the scope of im- 
perial legislation, but that "internal" taxa- 
tion was necessarily in the hands of the co- 
lonial assemblies. There was sufficient plausi- 
bility in this claim to commend it to Pitt, 
who adopted it in his speeches, and to Benja- 
min Franklin, the agent for Pennsylvania, 
already well known as a "philosopher," who 
expounded it confidently when he was ex- 
amined as an expert on American affairs at 
the bar of the Commons. It was, however, 
without any clear legal justification, and, as 
English speakers kept pointing out, it was 
wholly incompatible with the existence of a 
genuine imperial government. That it was 
a perfectly practical distinction, in keeping 
with English customs, was also true, but 



PARLIAMENTARY TAXATION 39 

that was not to be realized until three quar- 
ters of a century later. 

With the repeal of the objectionable law the 
uproar in America ceased and, amid profuse 
expressions of gratitude to Pitt, the ministry 
and the King, the colonists returned to their 
normal activities. The other parts of the 
Grenville program were not altered, and it 
was now possible for English ministers, by a 
wise and steady policy, to improve the weak 
spots in the colonial system without giving 
undue offence to a population whose sen- 
sitiveness and obstinate devotion to entire 
self-government had been so powerfully 
shown. Unfortunately the King again in- 
terposed his influence in such wise as to pre- 
vent any rational colonial policy. In the 
summer of 1766, tiring of the Rockingham 
ministry, he managed to bring together an 
odd coalition of political groups under the 
nominal headship of the Duke of Grafton. 
Pitt, who disliked the family cliques, ac- 
cepted oflSce and the title of earl of Chatham, 
hoping to lead a national ministry. The 
other elements were in part Whig, and in part 
representatives of the so called "King's 
Friends," — a growing body of more or less 
venal politicians who clung to George's sup- 
port for the sake of the patronage to be 
gained, — and several genuine Tories who 
looked to a revived royal power to end the 



40 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

Whig monopoly. From such a cabinet any 
consistent policy was not to be expected save 
under leadership of such a man as Pitt. 
Unfortunately the latter was immediately 
taken with an illness which kept him out 
of public life for two years, and Grafton, the 
nominal prime minister, was utterly unable 
to hold his own against the influence and in- 
trigues of the King. From the start, accord- 
ingly, the ministry proved weak and un- 
stable and it promptly allowed a new set of 
colonial quarrels to develop. 
p Charles Townshend, Chancellor of the Ex- 
chequer, one of the originators of the new 
colonial policy under the Bute ministry, was 
so ill-advised as to renew the attempt to 
raise a colonial revenue by parliamentary 
taxation. His manner of proposing the 
measure gave the impression that it was a 
piece of sheer bravado on his part, intended 
to regain the prestige which he had lost by 
failing to carry all of his first budget, but the 
nature of the scheme indicates its close con- 
nection with the Grenville ideals. Avoid- 
ing the appearance of a direct internal tax, he 
caused the imposition of duties on glass, 
painters' colors, paper and tea, without any 
pretence of regulating commerce, but for the 
announced purpose of defraying the expenses 
of governors and judges in the colonies. 
Another measure established an American 



PARLIAMENTARY TAXATION 41 

Board of Commissioners for customs. Still 
another punished the province of New York 
for failing to comply with an act of 1765 au- 
thorizing quartering of troops in the colonies. 
The assembly was forbidden to pass any 
law until it should make provision for the 
soldiers in question. Ex-governor Pownall 
of Massachusetts, now in Parliament, did 
not fail to warn the House of the danger 
into which it was running; but his words were 
unheeded, and the bills passed promptly. 

The result of these measures was inevi- 
table. Every political leader in the colonies, 
— nay, every voter, — saw that the Towns- 
hend duties, while in form "external," were 
pure revenue measures, unconnected with 
the Acts of Trade, and intended to strike at 
colonial independence in a vital point. If 
Great Britain undertook henceforward to 
pay the salaries of royal officials, one of the 
principal sources of power would be taken 
away from the assemblies. Instantly the 
distinction of "external" and "internal" 
taxation was abandoned, and from end to end 
of the Atlantic seaboard a cry went up that 
the duties were an insidious attack on the 
liberties of the Americans, an outrageous 
taking of their property without their con- 
sent, and a wanton interference with their 
governments. Not merely agitators such as 
the shrewd Samuel Adams and the eloquent 



42 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

Patrick Henry uttered these views, but men of 
far more considerable property and station, — 
such as John Jay and New York landowners 
and importers, John Dickinson and the 
Philadelphia merchants, George Washington 
and the Virginia planters. While no general 
Congress was summoned, the legislatures of 
the colonies adopted elaborate resolutions, 
pamphleteers issued a stream of denuncia- 
tions, and, most important of all, a concerted 
effort was made to break down the acts by 
abstaining from any importations, not only 
of the taxed commodities, but, so far as pos- 
sible, of any British products. Commercial 
boycott, it was hoped, would have the same 
effect as at the time of the Stamp Act. 

By this time the colonial argument had 
come to assume a much broader character, 
for, in order to deny the validity of the New 
York Assembly Act and the Townshend 
duties, it became necessary to assert that 
Parliament, according to "natural rights," 
had no legislative authority over the internal 
affairs of a colony. This was vested, by the 
constitution of each province or chartered 
colony, in the Crown and the colonial legisla- 
ture. Such a theory reduced the imperial 
tie to little more than a personal union 
through the monarch, coupled with the ad- 
mitted power of Parliament to regulate 
commerce and navigation. Evidently, as 



PARLIAMENTARY TAXATION 43 

in all such cases, the theory was framed to 
justify a particular desire, namely, to keep 
things where they had been prior to 1763. 
The sole question at issue was, in reality, 
one of power, not of abstract or legal right. 
Once more it was clear to men of penetrat- 
ing vision that the American colonies needed 
extremely careful handling. Whether their 
arguments were sound or fallacious, loyal 
or seditious, it was significant that the whole 
continent spoke in but one voice and felt 
but one desire, — to be allowed to exercise 
complete financial discretion and to retain 
full control over governors and judges. Un- 
fortunately the condition of things in Eng- 
land was such that a cool or steady treatment 
of the question was becoming impossible. 
In the first place, the Grafton ministry was 
reconstituted in 1768, the "Pittite" ele- 
ments withdrawing and being replaced by 
more King's Friends and Tories, while 
George Ill's influence grew predominant. 
Townshend died in September, 1767, but his 
place was taken by Lord North, a Tory and 
especially subservient to the King. A new 
secretaryship for the colonies was given to 
Lord Hillsborough, who had been in the 
Board of Trade in the Grenville ministry 
and represented his views. Neither of these 
men was inclined to consider colonial clamor 
in any other light than as unpardonable im- 



44 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

pudence and sedition. In the second place 
the old Whig family groups were fast assum- 
ing an attitude of bitter opposition to the 
new Tories, and by 1768 were prepared to use 
the American question as a convenient 
weapon to discredit the ministry. They were 
quite as aristocratic in temper as the min- 
isterial party but advocated forbearance, 
conciliation and calmness in dealing with the 
Americans, in speeches as remarkable for 
their political good sense as for their ferocity 
toward North, Hillsborough and the rest. 
While the ministry drew its views of the 
American situation from royal governors 
and officials, the Whigs habitually consulted 
with Franklin and the other colonial agents, 
who occupied a quasi-diplomatic position. 
Thus the American question became a par- 
tisan battleground. The Tories, attacked by 
the Whigs, developed a stubborn obstinacy in 
holding to a "firm" colonial policy, and ex- 
hibited a steady contempt and anger toward 
their American adversaries which was in no 
small degree due to the English party 
antagonism. 

Still further to confuse the situation there 
occurred at this time the contest of John 
Wilkes, backed by the London mob, against 
the Grafton ministry. This demagogue, 
able and profligate, had already come into 
conflict with the Grenville ministry in 1765 



PARLIAMENTARY TAXATION 45 

and been driven into exile. Now, in 1768, he 
returned and was repeatedly elected to the 
Commons and as repeatedly unseated by 
the vindictive ministerial majority. Riots 
and bloodshed accompanied the agitation, and 
Wilkes and his supporters, backed by the 
parliamentary Whigs, habitually proclaimed 
the same doctrines of natural rights which 
were universally asserted in America. To the 
King and his cabinet, Wilkes and the Ameri- 
can leaders appeared indistinguishable. They 
were all brawling, disorderly and dangerous 
demagogues, deserving of no consideration. 

Under these circumstances the complaints 
of the colonists, although supported by the 
Whigs and by Chatham, received scant 
courtesy in England. The Grafton min- 
istry showed nothing but an irritated inten- 
tion to maintain imperial supremacy by 
insisting on the taxes and demanding sub- 
missiveness on the part of the assemblies. 
A series of "firm" instructions was sent out 
by Hillsborough, typical of which was an 
order that the Massachusetts legislature 
must rescind its circular letter of protest 
under threat of dissolution, and that the 
other assemblies must repudiate the letter 
under a similar menace. The sole result was 
a series of embittered wrangles, dissolutions, 
protests and quarrels which left the colonists 
still more inflamed. Then, at the suggestion 



46 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

of the Commissioners of Customs, two regi- 
ments of troops were sent to Boston to over- 
awe that particularly defiant colony. There 
being no legislature in session, the Massa- 
chusetts towns sent delegates to a voluntary 
convention which drafted a protest. Im- 
mediately this action was denounced by 
Hillsborough as seditious and was censured 
by Parliament, while the Duke of Bedford 
moved that an old statute of Henry VIII, 
by which offenders outside the realm could 
be brought to England for trial, should be put 
into operation against the colonial agitators. 
When the Virginia legislature protested 
against this step, it was immediately dis- 
solved. Hillsborough and North acted as 
though they believed that a policy of scolding 
and nagging, if made sufficiently disagree- 
able, would bring the colonists to their 
senses. That the Whigs did not cease to 
pour contempt and ridicule on the folly of 
such behavior was probably one reason why 
the government persisted in its course. The 
American question was coming to be be- 
yond the reach of reason. 

Yet in 1769 the ministry could not avoid 
recognizing that as financial measures the 
Townshend duties were a hopeless failure, 
since their net proceeds were less than 300 
pounds and the increased military expenses 
were declared by Pownall to be over 170,000. 



PARLIAMENTARY TAXATION 47 

On May 1, 1769, the cabinet voted to repeal 
the taxes on glass, colors and paper, but by a 
majority of one determined to keep the tea 
duty. This decision was due to the complais- 
ance of Lord North, who saw the unwisdom 
of the step but yielded to the King's wish to 
retain one tax in order to assert the principle 
of parliamentary supremacy. A year later 
the Grafton ministry finally broke up and 
Lord North assumed control, with a cabinet 
composed wholly of Tories and supported by 
George III to the full extent of his power, 
through patronage, bribes, social pressure 
and political proscription. North himself was 
inclined to moderation in colonial matters. 
He carried the promised repeal of all the 
duties but the tea tax, and in 1772 replaced 
the arrogant and quarrelsome Hillsborough 
with the more amiable Lord Dartmouth. 
It looked for a while as though the political 
skies might clear, for the American merchants, 
tired of their self-imposed hardships, began 
to weaken in opposition. In 1769 the New 
York assembly voted to accept the parlia- 
mentary terms, and in 1770 the merchants of 
that colony voted to abandon general non- 
importation, keeping only the boycott on 
tea. This led to the general collapse of the 
non-importation agreements ; but the colonial 
temper continued to be defiant and suspicious, 
and wrangling with governors was incessant. 



48 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

Occasional cases of violence confirmed the 
English Tories in their low view of the Ameri- 
cans. In March, 1770, a riot in Boston be- 
tween town rowdies and the soldiers brought 
on a shooting affray in which five citizens 
were killed. This created intense indignation 
throughout the colonies, regardless of the 
provocation received by the soldiers, and led 
to an annual commemoration of the "Boston 
Massacre," marked by inflammatory 
speeches. The soldiers, however, when tried 
for murder in the local courts, were defended 
by prominent counsel, notably John Adams, 
and were acquitted. Two years later, on 
June 9, 1772, the Gaspee, a naval schooner, 
which had been very active in chasing smug- 
glers in Rhode Island waters, was burned by 
a mob, and its captain taken prisoner. The 
utmost efforts of the home government failed 
to secure the detection or punishment of any 
one of the perpetrators. 

Finally in December, 1773, a still more 
serious explosion occurred. The North min- 
istry, desirous of assisting the East India 
Company, which was burdened with debt, 
removed practically all restrictions from 
the exportation of tea to America in hopes 
of increasing the sale by reducing the 
price. To the colonial leaders, now in a 
state of chronic irritation, this measure 
seemed an insulting and insidious attempt 



PARLIAMENTARY TAXATION 49 

to induce the Americans to forget their 
principles and buy the tea because it was 
cheap. It was denounced from end to end 
of the country in burning rhetoric, and when 
the cargoes of tea arrived their sale was 
completely prevented by the overwhelming 
pressure of public opinion. Consignees, 
waited on by great crowds, hastened to 
resign, and the tea was either seized for non- 
payment of duties and allowed to spoil or 
was sent back. In Boston, however, the 
Governor, Hutchinson, stiffly refused to let 
the tea ships depart without landing the 
tea, whereat the exasperated citizens watched 
an organized mob of disguised men board 
the ships and throw the tea into the harbor. 
Once more the unanimous voice of the col- 
onies defied a parliamentary act. 

Such was the situation in 1773. Thirteen 
groups of English colonists, obstinately local 
in their interests, narrowly insistent on self- 
government, habituated to an antagonistic 
attitude toward royal governors, but, after 
all has been said, unquestionably loyal to 
the crown and the home country, had been 
transformed into communities on the verge 
of permanent insubordination. Incapable 
of changing all their political habits, they 
could see in the British policy only a purpose 
to deprive them of that self-government 
which was inseparable from liberty. The 



50 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

Crown ministers, on the other hand, unable 
to discover anything illegal, oppressive or 
unreasonable in any of their measures, found 
no explanation of the extravagant denuncia- 
tions of the colonial radicals other than a 
determination to foment every possible 
diflSculty with a view to throwing off all 
obedience. While Adams, Dickinson, Henry, 
Gadsden and the rest demanded their 
"rights" and protested against "incroach- 
ments" on their liberties, Bedford, Hills- 
borough, North and Dartmouth insisted on 
the "indecency," "insolence" and "dis- 
loyalty" shown by the Americans. The 
colonial republicans and the British noble- 
men were unable to speak the same language. 
Yet the time had come to face the situation, 
and it was the duty of the ministers to as- 
sume the task with something more serious 
than reproofs and legal formulae. The con- 
test for power now begun must lead, unless 
terminated, straight to a disruption of the 
empire. 

CHAPTER III 

THE DISRUPTION OF THE EMPIRE, 1773-1776 

When the news reached England that the 
people of the town of Boston had thrown 
the tea of the East India Company into the 
harbor, the patience of the North ministry, 



DISRUPTION OF THE EMPIRE 51 

already severely strained, reached its end. 
Its members felt, — and most of the English 
people felt with them, — that to submit to 
such an act of violence was impossible. 
Every consideration of national dignity de- 
manded that Boston and its rioters should 
be punished and that the outrage done to 
the East India Company should receive 
atonement. Hitherto, they said, the con- 
tumacious colonists had been dealt with 
chiefly by arguments, reproofs and, as it 
seemed to most Englishmen, with conces- 
sions and kindnesses which had won only 
insult and violence. 

It was resolved to make an example of the 
delinquent community, and the first step was 
to humiliate its representative, Benjamin 
Franklin. Ever since 1765 he had been re- 
siding in England, respected as a philosopher 
and admired as a wit, bearing a sort of dip- 
lomatic character through his position as 
agent for the assemblies of Massachusetts, 
Pennsylvania and Georgia. In close as- 
sociation with the Whig opposition, he was 
undoubtedly the best-known American, and 
among the most influential. Now, in 1774, 
having to present a petition from Massa- 
chusetts to the Privy Council for the removal 
of Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson, Frank- 
lin found it an awkward feature of the case 
that the colony's charges were based on 



52 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

private letters which he himself had in some 
way acquired and sent to Boston. The court 
party determined to crush him and at the 
hearing put forward Wedderburn, the So- 
licitor-General, — a typical King's friend, — 
who passed over the subject of the petition 
to brand Franklin in virulent invective as a 
thief and scoundrel. Amidst general ap- 
plause the petition was rejected as false and 
scandalous and Franklin was dismissed from 
his position of colonial Postmaster-General. 

When Parliament met it was instantly 
made clear that the sole idea controlling 
King, cabinet and the majority of members 
was to bring the Massachusetts colonists to 
their senses by severe punitive legislation. 
The Whig opposition did not attempt to de- 
fend the destruction of the tea, but it spared 
no effort to make the ministers see the folly 
of striking at effects and ignoring causes. In 
a masterly speech of April 19, 1774, Burke 
showed that the insistence on submission 
regardless of the grievances and of the nature 
of the colonists was a dangerous and absurd 
policy, and Pownall and Chatham repeated 
his ♦arguments, but without avail. The 
ministerial party saw no danger and felt 
nothing but the contempt of an irritated 
aristocracy. The original ideals of a general 
colonial reform were now lost sight of; the 
men responsible for them had all passed off 



DISRUPTION OF THE EMPIRE 53 

the stage; Grenville, Townshend and Halifax 
were dead, and North, careless and subser- 
vient to George III, Hillsborough, Suffolk, 
Sandwich and Rochford, — all noblemen and 
in many cases inefficient, — did not see be- 
yond the problem of coercing noisy and 
troublesome rioters, indistinguishable from 
the followers of Wilkes. Over and over again 
they reiterated that the colonists' resentment 
was not to be feared, that they would submit 
to genuine firmness, that they were all cow- 
ardly and dared not resist a few regular 
troops. Lord George Germaine earned the 
thanks of Lord North by declaring that the 
colonists were only "a tumultuous and noisy 
rabble," men who ought to be "following their 
mercantile employment and not attempting 
to govern." Not a gleam of any other 
statesmanship appears in any of the minis- 
terial speeches than that displayed in the de- 
termination to exact complete submission. 

There were passed, accordingly, by the full 
ministerial majority, five measures known as 
the Coercive Acts, or, in America, as the Five 
Intolerable Acts. The first one punished 
Boston by closing the port to all trade until 
the offending town should recompense the 
East India Company for the tea destroyed. 
The next altered the government of Massa- 
chusetts Bay by making the councillors ap- 
pointive instead of elective, by placing the 



54 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN ^WARS 

appointment and removal of all judicial 
officers entirely in the hands of the governor, 
by placing the selection of jurors in the hands 
of the sheriffs and prohibiting town-meetings, 
— apart from the annual one to elect officers, — 
without the governor's permission. A third 
act authorized the transfer to England for 
trial of British officers charged with murder 
committed while in discharge of their duties. 
A fourth act reestablished the system of 
quartering troops. 

The fifth act reorganized the province of 
Quebec, whose government, under the Proc- 
lamation of 1763, had proved defective in 
several respects. The legal institutions of 
the new colony were not well adapted to the 
mixed French and English inhabitants, and 
the religious situation needed definition. 
The Quebec Act altered the government of 
the province by the creation of an appointive 
council, authorized the Catholic Church to 
collect tithes and allowed the French to sub- 
stitute an oath of allegiance for the oath of 
supremacy. Moreover, French civil law was 
permitted to exist. At the same time the 
boundaries of the province were extended 
into the region west of the mountains so as to 
include the lands north of the Ohio River. 

With the passage of these acts the original 
causes for antagonism were superseded. The 
commissioners of customs might have en- 



DISRUPTION OF THE EMPIRE 55 

forced the Navigation Acts indefinitely; the 
objectionable Tea Act might have stood per- 
manently on the statute book; but, without 
a more tangible grievance, it is not easy to 
conceive of the colonists actually beginning 
revolution. But now the time had come 
when a more serious issue was raised than 
the right of Parliament to collect a revenue 
by a tariff in the colonies. If Parliament was 
to be allowed to crush the prosperity of a 
colonial seaport, to render centralized a 
hitherto democratic government created by a 
royal charter, and to remove royal officers 
from the scope of colonial juries, it was clear 
that the end of all the powers and privileges 
wrung from royal or proprietary governors 
by generations of struggle was at hand. But 
the striking feature in this punitive legisla- 
tion was that the North ministry expected 
it to meet no resistance, although its execu- 
tion, so far as the government of Massa- 
chusetts was concerned, rested on the consent 
of the colonists. There was, under the British 
system, no administrative body capable of 
carrying out these laws, no military force 
except the few regiments in Boston, and no 
naval force beyond a few frigates and cruis- 
ers. The mere passage of the laws, accord- 
ing to North and to Lord Mansfield, was 
sufficient to bring submission. 

Nothing more clearly shows the profound 



56 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

ignorance of the Tory ministry than this 
expectation, for it was instantly disappointed. 
At the news of the acts the response from 
America was unanimous. Already the colo- 
nial Whigs were well organized in commit- 
tees of correspondence, and now they acted 
not merely in Massachusetts but in every 
colony. The town of Boston refused to vote 
compensation, and was immediately [closed 
under the terms of the Port Act. Expres- 
sions of sympathy and gifts of provisions 
came pouring into the doomed community, 
while public meetings, legislatures, political 
leaders and clergymen, in chorus denounced 
the acts as unconstitutional, cruel and 
tyrannous. The Quebec Act, extending the 
Catholic religion and French law into the 
interior valley under despotic government, 
was regarded as scarcely less sinister than 
the Regulating Act itself. 

Under the efficient organization of the 
leaders a Continental Congress met in Phila- 
delphia in October, 1774, to make united 
protest. This body, comprising without 
exception the most influential men in the 
colonies, presented a sharp contrast to Parlia- 
ment in that every man was the representa- 
tive of a community of freemen, self-govern- 
ing and equal before the law. The leaders 
did not regard themselves in any sense as 
revolutionaries. They were simply delegates 



DISRUPTION OF THE EMPIRE 57 

from the separate colonies, met to confer on 
their common dangers. Their action con- 
sisted of the preparation of a petition to the 
King, addresses to the people of England, 
the people of Quebec and the people of the 
colonies, but not to Parliament, since they 
denied its right to pass any such laws as those 
under complaint. The Congress further drew 
up a declaration of rights which stated sharply 
the colonial claims, namely, that Parliament 
had no right to legislate for the internal affairs 
of the separate colonies. It also adopted a 
plan for putting commercial pressure on 
England by forming an Association, whose 
members pledged themselves to consume no 
English products, and organized committees 
in every colony to enforce this boycott. The 
leaders in the body were destined to long 
careers of public prominence, — such men as 
George Washington, Lee and Patrick Henry 
of Virginia, Rutledge of South Carolina, 
Dickinson of Pennsylvania, Jay of New 
York, Samuel and John Adams of Massa- 
chusetts. They differed considerably in their 
temper, the Massachusetts men being far 
more ready for drastic words and deeds than 
the others, but they held together admir- 
ably. If such protests as theirs could not 
win a hearing in England, it was hardly con- 
ceivable that any could. 

Meanwhile the situation gave signs of 



58 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

being more explosive in reality than the 
respectful words of the Congress implied. In 
Massachusetts the town of Boston showed 
no sign of submitting, and endured distress 
and actual starvation, although much cheered 
by gifts of food from all parts of the conti- 
nent. The new government under the Reg- 
ulating Act proved impossible to put into 
operation, for the popular detestation was 
visited in such insulting and menacing forms 
that the new councillors and judges dared 
not serve. More radical action followed. 
When Gage, having caused the election of a 
legislature, prorogued it before it had assem- 
bled, the members none the less gathered. 
Declaring that the Regulating Act was invalid, 
they elected a council, appointed a committee 
of safety and named a receiver of taxes. On 
February 1, 1775, a second Provincial Con- 
gress was chosen by the towns, which had not 
even a nominal sanction by the governor. 
The colony was in fact in peaceful revolution, 
for Gage found himself unable to collect 
taxes or to make his authority respected as 
governor beyond the range of his bayonets. 
Equally significant was it that in several 
other colonies where the governors failed to 
call the legislatures, provincial congresses or 
conventions were spontaneously elected to 
supervise the situation and choose delegates 
to the Continental Congress. 



DISRUPTION OF THE EMPIRE 59 

So deep was the popular anger in Massa- 
chusetts Bay that the collection of arms and 
powder and the organization of militia were 
rapidly begun. Clearly the Massachusetts 
leaders were preparing to persist to the verge 
of civil war. But by this time there began 
to be felt in the colonies a countercurrent 
of protest. As the situation grew darker and 
men talked openly of possible separation 
unless the intolerable wrongs were redressed, 
all those whose interests or whose loyalty 
revolted at the idea of civil war became 
alarmed at the danger. Soon men of such 
minds began to print pamphlets, according 
to the fashion of the time, and to attempt 
to prevent the radicals from pushing the 
colonies into seditious courses. But the 
position of these conservatives was exceed- 
ingly difficult, for they were obliged to apolo- 
gize for the home country at a time when 
every act on the part of that country indi- 
cated a complete indifference to the colonial 
prejudices. Further, their arguments against 
revolution or independence left, after all, no 
alternative except submission. Denounced 
as Tories by the hotter radicals, they found 
themselves at once more and more alarmed 
by the daring actions of the Whigs and more 
detested by the excited people of their 
communities. 

The action of the British government 



60 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

after these events showed no comprehension 
of the critical situation into which they 
were rushing. George III and North secured 
in the election of 1774 a triumphant majority 
of the Commons and felt themselves beyond 
reach of danger at home. The arguments 
of the colonists, the protests of the Conti- 
nental Congress, fell upon indifferent ears. 
Although Burke and Chatham exerted them- 
selves with astonishing eloquence in the 
session of Parliament, which began in Novem- 
ber, 1774, the Whig motions for conciliation 
were voted down by the full ministerial 
majority. Petitions from merchants, who 
felt the pressure of the Non-importation 
Association, were shelved. So far as the policy 
of the ministry may be described, it con- 
sisted of legislation to increase the punish- 
ment of Massachusetts Bay and extend it 
to other colonies, and to offer a conditional 
exemption from Parliamentary taxation. 
Both houses of Parliament declared Massa- 
chusetts Bay to be in rebellion and voted to 
crush all resistance. An act was passed, 
March 30, to restrain the trade of New Eng- 
land, shutting off all colonial vessels from 
the fisheries, and forbidding them to trade 
with any country but England or Ireland. 
By a second act, in April, this restriction was 
extended to all the colonies except New York 
and Georgia. The only purpose of this act 



DISRUPTION OF THE EMPIRE 61 

was punitive. Every step was fought by the 
Whig opposition, now thoroughly committed 
to the cause of the colonists, but their argu- 
ments had the inherent weakness of offering 
only a surrender to the colonists' position, 
which the parliamentary majority was in no 
mood to consider. In fact it was only with 
great difficulty and after a stormy scene 
that North induced his party to vote a so- 
called conciliatory proposition offering to 
abstain from taxing any colony which should 
make such a fixed provision for civil and 
judicial officers as would satisfy Parliament. 
It was only a few days after the passage 
of the restraining acts by Parliament that 
the long-threatened civil war actually broke 
out in Massachusetts. General Gage, aware 
of the steady gathering of powder and war 
material by the revolutionary committee of 
safety, finally came to the conclusion that 
his position required him to break up these 
threatening bases of supplies. On April 19, 
1775, he sent out a force of 800 men to 
Lexington and Concord, — towns a few miles 
from Boston, — with orders to seize or destroy 
provisions and arms. They accomplished 
their purpose, after dispersing with musketry 
a squad of farmers at Lexington; but were 
hunted back to Boston by many times their 
number of excited " minute men," who from 
behind fences and at every crossroad har- 



62 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

assed their retreat. A reinforcement of 1500 
men enabled the raiding party to escape, but 
they lost over 300 men, and inflicted a total 
loss of only 90 in their flight. 

Thus began the American Revolution, 
for the news of this day of bloody skirmish- 
ing, as it spread, started into flame the excite- 
ment of the colonial Whigs. From the other 
New England colonies men sprang to arms, 
and companies marched to Boston, where 
they remained in rude blockade outside the 
town, unprovided with artillery or military 
organization, but unwilling to return to their 
homes. From the hill-towns a band of men 
surprised Fort Ticonderoga on Lake Cham- 
plain, taking the cannon for use around 
Boston. In every other colony militia were 
organized, oflScers chosen and arms collected, 
and almost everywhere, except in Quaker 
Pennsylvania and in proprietary Maryland, 
the governors and royal officials fled to the 
seacoast to take refuge in royal ships of war, 
or resigned their positions at the command 
of crowds of armed "minute men." Con- 
ventions and congresses, summoned by 
committees of safety, were elected by the 
Whigs and assumed control of the colonies, 
following the example of Massachusetts. 
The British colonial government, in short, 
crumbled to nothing in the spring of 1775. 
Only Gage's force of a few regiments, shut 



DISRUPTION OF THE EMPIRE 63 

up in Boston, and a few naval vessels, repre- 
sented the authority of England in America. 

Again there met a Continental Congress 
at Philadelphia, whose duty it was to unify 
colonial action and to give the colonial 
answer to the late parliamentary acts. Once 
more the ablest men of the colonies were 
present, now gravely perturbed over the 
situation and divided into two camps. On 
the one hand most of the New Englanders, 
led by Samuel Adams and John Adams, his 
cousin, felt that the time for parley was at 
an end, that nothing was to be hoped for 
from the North ministry and that the only 
reasonable step was to declare independence. 
Others still hoped that George III would 
realize the extent of the crisis and be moved 
to concessions, while yet others, who hoped 
little, thought that one more effort should 
be made to avoid revolution. But none 
dreamed of surrender. Of the growing num- 
ber of Americans who recoiled in horror from 
the possibility of independence, and were 
beginning to show their dread in every way, 
not one was in this body. It represented 
only the radicals in the several colonies. 

The action of Congress has been charged 
with inconsistency, for some of its measures 
were impelled by the most radical members, 
others by the conservatives. On the one 
hand it declined to adopt a form of federa- 



64 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

tion suggested by Franklin, and authorized 
Dickinson to draw up a final, respectful, 
almost obsequious petition to the King to 
avoid war, — a document called the "Olive 
Branch"; but on the other hand it appointed 
Washington to command the troops near 
Boston as a Continental commander, adopted 
a report censuring the conciliatory proposi- 
tion in bold language and issued an address 
justifying with extravagant rhetoric the tak- 
ing up of arms. Still more daring, it went so 
far as to assume to pay the so-called "Con- 
tinental army" by means of issuing bills of 
credit, redeemable by the united colonies. 
Later, in 1775, it appointed a secret committee 
to correspond with friends abroad, and under- 
took extensive measures for raising troops 
and accumulating military stores. To the 
revolted colonies, who found themselves 
with no legal authorities, it gave the advice 
to form such governments as would secure 
peace and good order during the continuance 
of the existing dispute, a step which was 
promptly taken by several. 

Fighting meanwhile went on. General 
Gage, on June 17, undertook to drive from 
Charlestown, across the harbor from Boston, a 
body of about 1500 provincial troops who had 
intrenched themselves on Breed's Hill. In 
all about 3000 British were brought to the 
attack, while gunboats raked the peninsula 



DISRUPTION OF THE EMPIRE 65 

between Charlestown and the mainland, 
hindering the arrival of reinforcements. 
With true British contempt for their adver- 
saries, the lines of red-uniformed troops 
marched under the hot sun up the hill, to be 
met with a merciless fire at short range from 
the rifles, muskets and fowling pieces of the 
defenders. Two frontal attacks were thus 
repelled with murderous slaughter, but a 
third attack, delivered over the same ground, 
was pushed home and the defenders driven 
from their redoubt. Never was a victory 
more handsomely won or more dearly bought. 
The assailants lost not less than 1000 out of 
3000 engaged, including 92 officers. The 
Americans lost only 450, but that was almost 
as large a proportion. It was obvious to any 
intelligent officer that the Americans might 
have been cut off from behind and compelled 
to surrender without being attacked, but 
Gage and his subordinates were anxious to 
teach the rebels a lesson. The result of this 
action, known in history as "Bunker Hill," 
was to render him and nearly all the officers 
who served against Americans unwilling 
ever again to storm intrenchments. They 
discovered that, as Putnam, who commanded 
part of the forces, observed, the militia would 
fight well if their legs were covered. They 
were later to discover the converse, that with 
no protection militia were almost useless. 



66 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

From this time the British force remained 
quietly in Boston, fed and supplied from 
England at immense cost and making no 
effort to attack the miscellaneous levies 
which General Washington undertook to 
form into an army during the summer and 
autumn. Nothing but the inaction of the 
British made it possible for Washington's 
command to remain, for they lacked powder, 
bayonets, horses and, most serious of all, 
they lacked all military conceptions. The 
elementary idea of obedience was inconceiv- 
able to them. Washington's irritation over 
the perfectly unconcerned democracy of the 
New Englanders was extreme, but he showed 
a wonderful patience and tenacity, and by 
sheer persistence began to create something 
like a military organization. Yet even after 
months of drill and work the army remained 
little more than'an armed mob. At length, 
in March, 1776, Washington managed to 
place a force on Dorchester heights, which 
commanded the harbor from the south. At 
first Gage had some idea of attacking, but 
storms intervened, and finally, without an- 
other blow, he evacuated the city and sailed 
with all his force to Halifax. So ended a 
siege which ought never to have lasted a 
month had the British generals been seri- 
ously minded to break it up. 

Other military events consisted of a few 



DISRUPTION OF THE EMPIRE 67 

skirmishes in Virginia and North CaroHna, 
where the governors managed to raise small 
forces of loyalists, who were thoroughly de- 
feated by the Whig militia, and of a gallant 
but hopeless attempt by the rebels to capture 
Canada. After some futile efforts on the 
part of Congress to induce the French to 
revolt, two bodies of men, in the autumn of 
1775, made their way across the border. One, 
entering Canada by way of Lake Champlain, 
occupied Montreal, and then advanced against 
Quebec, where it was joined by the other, 
which, with great hardships, had penetrated 
through the wilderness of northern Maine. 
The commanders, Richard Montgomery, 
Benedict Arnold and Daniel Morgan of 
Virginia, were men of daring, but their force, 
numbering not more than 1000, was inade- 
quate, and, after the failure of an effort to 
carry the place by surprise on the night of 
December 31, — in which Montgomery was 
killed and Morgan captured, — they were un- 
able to do more than maintain a blockade 
outside the fortress. 

The action of the North ministry during 
these months showed no deviation from its 
policy of enforcing submission. The Olive 
Branch petition was refused a reception and 
a proclamation was issued declaring the 
colonies in rebellion and warning all subjects 
against traitorous correspondence. When 



68 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

Parliament met in November, 1775, the 
opposition, led as usual by Burke, made one 
more effort to avoid civil war, but the minis- 
terial party rejected all proposals for con- 
ciliation and devoted itself to preparing to 
crush the rebellion. On December 22, an act 
became law, which, if enforced, would have 
been a sentence of death to all colonial 
economic life. It superseded the Boston 
Port Act and the restraining acts, absolutely 
prohibited all commerce with the revolted 
colonies and authorized the impressment into 
the navy of all seamen found on vessels 
captured under the act. 

Military and naval preparations were slow 
and costly. The Admiralty and War OflSce, 
unprepared for a general war, had insufficient 
troops and sailors, and had to collect or 
create supplies and equipment. The Earl of 
Sandwich showed activity , but slight capacity 
as First Lord of the Admiralty. Viscount 
Barrington had been secretary at war under 
Pitt during the French war, but he lacked 
force and influence. Hence, although Parlia- 
ment voted 50,000 troops, there was con- 
fusion and delay. To secure a prompt 
supply of men, the ministry took the step 
of hiring German mercenaries from the lesser 
Rhine princes, — Hesse, Waldeck and others, 
— at a rate per head with a fixed sum for 
deaths. This practice was customary in 



DISRUPTION OF THE EMPIRE 69 

wars when England was obliged to protect 
Hanover from the French, but to use the 
same method against their own kindred in 
America was looked upon with aversion by 
many English, and aroused ungovernable 
indignation in all Americans. It seemed to 
show a callousness toward all ties of blood and 
speech which rendered any hope of reconcilia- 
tion futile. The war was not, in fact, popular 
in England. The task of conquering rebels 
was not relished by many, and officers and 
noblemen of Whig connections in some cases 
resigned their commissions rather than serve. 
The parliamentary opposition denounced the 
war with fiery zeal as an iniquity and a 
scandal. Nevertheless the general opinion 
in England supported the ministry in its de- 
termination to assert the national strength; 
for the colonial behavior seemed to the 
average Englishman as nothing more or less 
than impudent sedition, to yield to which 
would be disgrace. 

To the Americans the British action in 
1776 showed that the only alternatives were 
submission or fighting; and, if the latter must 
be chosen, then it was the feeling of a grow- 
ing number that independence was the only 
outcome. There now went on a contest be- 
tween conservatives, including on one side 
those who opposed all civil war, those who 
were willing to fight to defend rights but 



70 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

who were unwilling to abandon hopes of 
forcing England to surrender its claims, and 
those whose businesses and connections 
were closely interwoven with the mother 
country and all the radicals on the other. Un- 
fortunately for the conservatives they had 
only fear, or sentiment, for arguments, since 
the North ministry gave them nothing to 
urge upon doubtful men. Still more un- 
fortunately they were, as a rule, outside the 
revolutionary organizations of conventions 
and committees, and were themselves without 
means of cooperating. 

In the excitement and tension of the time 
the ruder and rougher classes tended to 
identify all reluctance to join in the revolution 
as equivalent to upholding the North policy, 
and to attack as Tories all who did not 
heartily support the revolutionary cause. 
Violence and intimidation rapidly made them- 
selves felt. Loyalists were threatened, forced 
by mobs to sign the Association; their houses 
were defiled, their movements watched. 
Then arms were taken from them, and in case 
they showed anger or temper they were 
occasionally whipped or even tarred and 
feathered. In this way a determined minor- 
ity, backed by the poorer and rougher classes, 
overrode all opposition and swelled a rising 
cry for independence. 

The Congress was slow, for it felt the need 



DISRUPTION OF THE EMPIRE 71 

of unanimity, and such colonies as New York 
and Pennsylvania, were controlled by moder- 
ates. But at length, in June, 1776, spurred on 
by the Virginia delegates and by the tireless 
urgings of the Massachusetts leaders, the 
body acted. Already some of the colonies 
had adopted constitutions whose language 
indicated their independence. Now the 
Continental Congress, after a final debate, 
adopted a Declaration of Independence, 
drafted by Jefferson of Virginia and sup- 
ported by the eloquence of John Adams and 
the influence of Franklin. Basing their 
position on the doctrines of the natural right 
of men to exercise full self-government and 
to change their form of government when 
it became oppressive, the colonies, in this 
famous document, imitated the English Dec- 
laration of Rights of 1689 in drawing up a 
bill of indictment against George Ill's gov- 
ernment. In this can be discovered every 
cause of resentment and every variety of 
complaint which the thirteen colonies were 
ready to put forward. Practically all were 
political. There were allusions in plenty 
to the wrangles between governors and as- 
semblies, denunciations of the parliamentary 
taxes and the coercing acts, but no reference 
to the Acts of Trade. To the end, the colo- 
nists, even in the act of declaring independ- 
ence, found their grievances in the field of 



72 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

government and not in economic regula- 
tion. What they wanted was the unrestricted 
power to legislate for themselves and to tax 
or refrain from taxing themselves. When 
these powers were diminished their whole 
political ideal was ruined, and they preferred 
independence to what they considered ser- 
vitude. Such ideas were beyond the com- 
prehension of most Englishmen, to whom the 
whole thing was nothing more nor less than 
plain disloyalty, however cloaked in specious 
words and glittering generalities. 

It has been said that the rupture was due 
to a spirit of independence in America which, 
in spite of all disclaimers, was determined to 
be entirely free from the mother country. 
Such was the assertion of the Tories and 
officials of the time, and the same idea is not 
infrequently repeated at the present day. 
But the truth is that the colonists would 
have been contented to remain indefinitely 
in union with England, subjects of the British 
crown, sharers of the British commercial 
empire, provided they could have been sure 
of complete local self-government. The 
independence they demanded was far less 
than that now enjoyed by the great colonial 
unions of Canada, Australia and South 
Africa. It may be assumed, of course, that 
unless Parliament exercised complete au- 
thority over internal as well as external 



DISRUPTION OF THE EMPIRE 73 

matters — to employ the then customary 
distinction — there was no real imperial bond. 
Such was the position unanimously taken by 
the North ministry and the Tories in 1776. 
But in view of the subsequent history of the 
English colonies it seems hardly deniable 
that some relationship similar to thei ex- 
isting colonial one might have been perpetu- 
ated had the Whig policy advocated by 
Burke been adopted and the right of Parlia- 
ment "to bind the colonies in all cases what- 
soever" been allowed to drop, in practice. 
The obstinate localism of the colonies was 
such that not until a generation after the 
Revolution did a genuine American national 
sentiment appear. The colonies were driven 
to act together in 1774-1776, but not to fuse, 
by a danger not to national but to local in- 
dependence. This fact indicates how sharply 
defined was the field which the Americans 
insisted on having free from parliamentary 
invasion. Had it been possible for England 
to recognize this fact there would have been 
no revolution. 

It is of course obvious that the traditional 
American view of the Revolution as caused 
by tyranny and oppression is symbolical if 
not fictitious. The British government, in 
all its measures, from 1763 to 1774, was mod- 
erate, hesitating and at worst irritating. 
Its action threatened to destroy the practi- 



74 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

cal independence of the colonial assemblies; 
but the danger was political. Even the five 
"intolerable acts" inflicted hardship on the 
town of Boston alone. It was not until the 
year 1775, when Parliament imposed severe 
commercial restrictions, that anything re- 
sembling actual oppression began, but by 
that time the colonies were in open revolt. 
Yet this fact only emphasizes, as Burke 
pointed out, the criminal folly of the North 
ministry in allowing the situation to become 
dangerous. It was the misfortune of the 
British people in the eighteenth century that 
in the critical years after 1767, George III 
and his ministers were unable to conceive of 
any value in colonies which were not in the 
full sense dependencies, and were narrowly 
limited by the economic ideas of their time 
and the social conventions of their class. 
Since the colonies had developed, unchecked, 
their own political life under British govern- 
ment, it was not their duty humbly to sur- 
render all that had come to be identical with 
liberty in their eyes. It was the duty of the 
British statesmen to recognize the situation 
and deal with it. This they failed to do and 
the result was revolution. 



CIVIL WAR IN THE EMPIRE 75 
CHAPTER IV 

THE CIVIL WAR IN THE EMPIRE, 1776-1778 

In the war which now began the military 
situation was such that neither side could 
look forward to an easy victory. The Eng- 
lish home country outweighed the colonies 
in population by three or four to one; and 
in every element of military strength to a 
much greater degree. There was a standing 
army, an ample sufficiency of professional offi- 
cers, the most powerful navy in the world, 
the full machinery of financial administra- 
tion, abundant credit and wealthy manu- 
facturing and agricultural classes which had 
already shown their power to carry the 
burdens of a world contest without flinching. 
With a powerful party ministry endowed 
with full discretion in the ordering of military 
affairs there was little danger of divided 
councils or of inability to secure responsible 
direction. North, Sandwich at the Admi- 
ralty, Barrington as Secretary at War, Ger- 
maine as Secretary for the Colonies, could 
command the active support of the King, 
the Parliament, and, it appeared, of the 
people. 

On the other hand it was necessary to 
carry on war at 3000 miles distance from the 
base of supplies, and to feed and clothe the 



76 [ENGLISH AND AlVIERICAN WARS 

armies entirely from home. The cost was 
certain to be extremely heavy and the 
practical difficulties of management arising 
from the distance were sure to be great, unless 
a competent commander were to be given 
complete authority in the colonies. Then, 
too, the problem was not one of conquering 
cities or single strategic points, or of de- 
feating a rival state, but of so thoroughly 
beating down resistance as to lead the 
Americans to abandon their revolution and 
submit to the extinction of their new-formed 
confederation. Armies must operate inland 
from a seacoast where landing was easy in 
hundreds of places, but where almost every 
step took them into a rough country, ill- 
provided with roads and lacking in easily 
collected supplies. In spite of all advantages 
of military power, the problem before the 
British government was one calling for the 
highest forms of military capacity, and this, 
by an unexplained ill-fortune, was conspicu- 
ously lacking. Not a British general who 
commanded in America failed to show fight- 
ing ability and tactical sense, but not one of 
them possessed the kind of genius which 
grasps the true military ends of any cam- 
paign and ignores minor points for the sake 
of winning decisive advantages. Perhaps it 
would be unjust to apply to the British 
forces in this war the designation won in 



CIVIL WAR IN THE EMPIRE 77 
1744 — "armies of lions led by asses"; but 
the analogy is at least suggested. 

Still more serious was the fact that the 
North ministry was chosen mainly on the 
basis of the willingness of its members to 
execute the King's orders and use their in- 
fluence and parliamentary power and con- 
nections in his behalf. North himself, able 
as a parliamentarian, was irresolute in policy, 
ignorant of war and careless in administra- 
tion; Weymouth and Suffolk, the Secre- 
taries, were of slight ability; Lord George 
Germaine, Secretary for the Colonies, was 
arrogant, careless and lacking in military 
insight; Barrington, Secretary at War, pos- 
sessed administrative ability, but was with- 
out personal weight in the cabinet; Sand- 
wich at the Admiralty was grossly inefficient. 
There was not a single member of the cabinet 
fitted to carry on war, or able to influence 
George III. For such a body of men to 
undertake to direct the operations in America 
at the distance of 3000 miles was a worse 
blunder than it would have been to commit 
the conduct of the war to any one of the 
generals in the field, however commonplace 
his abilities. 

On the side of the colonists the problem 
of fighting the full power of England was 
apparently a desperate one. The militia, 
with superior numbers, had chased the British 



78 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

from Concord and had made a stubborn de- 
fence at Bunker Hill; but the British swere 
about to move with overwhelming strength. 
To raise, equip, clothe and feed armies was 
the task of a strong administration, and there 
was nothing of the kind in America. The 
ex-colonists not only had never known 
efficient administration; they had fought 
against any and all administration for gen- 
erations, and their leaders had won their fame 
as opponents of all executive power. To 
thunder against royal oppression won ap- 
plause, but indicated no ability at raising 
money and organizing such things as com- 
missariat, artillery or a navy, and it may be 
said of such men as Samuel Adams, Robert 
Morris, Roger Sherman, John Rutledge, 
Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson that 
their administrative training was as far be- 
low that of their enemies in the North min- 
istry as their political capacity was, in gen- 
eral, superior. The Continental Congress, 
moreover, which assumed responsibility for 
the army, could only recommend measures 
to the states and call upon them 'to furnish 
troops and money. In contrast to the states, 
which derived their powers unquestionably 
from the voters within their boundaries and 
could command their obedience, the Congress 
had no legal or constitutional basis and was 
nothing more than the meeting place of 



CIVIL WAR IN THE EMPIRE 79 

delegates from voluntary allies. Such mili- 
tary authority as it exercised rested entirely 
upon the general agreement of the states. 
National government, in short, did not 
exist. Still more serious was the fact 
that there were very few trained officers in 
America. The American military leaders, 
such as Washington, Greene, Wayne, Sulli- 
van, were distinctly inferior in soldiership 
to their antagonists, although Washington 
and Greene developed greater strategic abil- 
ity after many blunders. It was only 
through sundry military adventurers, some 
English, — such as Montgomery, Gates, Lee, 
Conway, — others European, — such as De 
Kalb, Steuben, Pulaski, — that something of 
the military art could be acquired. 

Most serious of all, there were no troops 
in America who comprehended the nature 
of military discipline. The conception of 
obedience to orders, of military duty, of the 
absolute necessity of holding steady, was 
beyond the range of most Americans. They 
regarded war as something to be carried on 
in their own neighborhoods, and resisted 
obstinately being drawn outside their own 
states. They refused to enlist for longer 
than a few months, since they felt it impera- 
tive to return to look after their farms. They 
had little regard for men from different 
sections, distrusted commanders from any 



80 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

state but their own, and had no loyalty of 
any description to the Continental Congress. 
They were, in short, still colonists, such as 
generations of training had made them; very 
angry with Great Britain, infuriated at 
Tories and glad to be independent, but un- 
able to realize the meaning of it all even 
under the terrible stress of war. 

Under the circumstances the task of the 
men to whose lot it fell to lead the Ameri- 
can forces was such as to tax to the utmost 
not only their military skill but their ability to 
control, inspire and persuade the most refrac- 
tory and unreliable of material. When to this 
were added the facts that the colonies were 
almost wholly lacking in manufactures, ex- 
cept those of the most rudimentary sort, 
that they had little capital that was not in 
the form of land, buildings, vessels and crops, 
and that whatever revenue they had been 
in the habit of deriving from commerce was 
liable to be destroyed by the British naval 
supremacy, it is easily seen that the disad- 
vantages of the home country were actually 
counterbalanced by the still more crushing 
disadvantages of the revolting colonies. 

In the summer of 1776 the British ad- 
vanced from two quarters. In the north, as 
soon as navigation opened, men-of-war sailed 
up the St. Lawrence and brought reinforce- 
ments to Quebec. The relics of the American 



CIVIL WAR IN THE EMPIRE 81 

force, unable to maintain themselves in 
Canada, abandoned their conquests with- 
out a blow and retreated into the Lake 
Champlain region, there intending to hold 
the forts at Crown Point and Ticonderoga. 
Col. Guy Carleton, the new commander, soon 
was able to move southward with over- 
whelming numbers, but, after reaching the 
northern end of Lake Champlain, he found 
that body of water commanded by a small 
squadron of gunboats under Benedict Arnold, 
and deeming it impossible to advance, de- 
layed all summer in order to construct a 
rival fleet. Meanwhile all operations came 
to a standstill in that region. Eleven thou- 
sand men, chiefly regular troops, were thus 
kept inactive for months. 

The principal British force gathered at 
Halifax and sailed directly against New York. 
It was there joined by the remains of a naval 
expedition which had endeavored in June, 
1776, to capture Charleston, South Carolina, 
but had suffered severely in an attempt to 
bombard Fort Moultrie and been compelled 
to withdraw. This success, which raised 
the spirits of the rebels, was, however, the 
last they were to enjoy for many months. 
The main British expedition was expected 
to overpower all colonial resistance, for it 
comprised a fleet of men-of-war, and an army 
of no less than 31,000 men, including Ger- 



82 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

man mercenaries, fully equipped, drilled 
and provisioned. The admiral in command. 
Lord Howe, a Whig, was authorized to issue 
pardons in return for submission, and evi- 
dently expected the mere presence of so 
powerful an armament to cause the collapse 
of all resistance. His brother. Sir William 
Howe, who commanded the army, was a 
good officer, in actual fighting, but a man of 
little energy or activity, and unwilling, ap- 
parently, to cause the revolted colonies any 
more suffering than was necessary. He was, 
moreover, quite without military insight of 
the larger kind, failing to recognize the 
peculiar character of the war upon which he 
was entering and acting, when pushing on a 
campaign, precisely as though he were 
operating against a European army in west 
Germany. 

In spite, however, of all deficiencies, it 
seemed as though Howe could not fail to 
crush the undisciplined collection of 17,000 
militia and minute men with which Wash- 
ington endeavored to meet him at New 
York. Controlling the harbor and the rivers 
with his fleet he could move anywhere and 
direct superior numbers against any Ameri- 
can position. The first blow, struck after 
futile efforts at negotiation, was aimed at 
an American force which held Brooklyn 
Heights on Long Island. About 20,000 



CIVIL WAR IN THE EMPIRE 83 

British and Hessian troops were landed on 
August £2, and five days later they out- 
flanked and crushed a body of Americans 
placed to obstruct their advance. There 
remained the American intrenchments, which 
were weak and ill-defended, but Howe re- 
fused to attack, probably with memories 
of Bunker Hill in his mind. Washington 
managed, owing to favorable rainy weather, 
to remove his beaten force by night on 
August 29, but only the inaction of Howe 
enabled them to escape capture. 

There followed a delay of two weeks, dur- 
ing which Admiral Howe tried to secure an 
interview with American leaders, in hopes 
of inducing the rebels to submit; but finding 
Franklin, Adams and Rutledge — commis- 
sioners named by Congress — immovably com- 
mitted to independence, he was compelled 
to renew hostilities. There ensued next a 
slow campaign in which General Howe easily 
forced Washington to evacuate New York, 
to retreat northward and after various 
skirmishes to withdraw over the Hudson 
River into New Jersey. At no time did 
Washington risk a general engagement; at 
no time did he inflict any significant loss 
upon his antagonist or hinder his advance. 
The militia were in fact almost useless in the 
open field, and only dared linger before the 
oncoming redcoats when intrenched or when 



84 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

behind walls and fences. Many of them from 
New England grew discouraged and home- 
sick, and left the moment their short enlist- 
ments expired, so that without any serious 
battles Washington's so-called army dwindled 
week by week. On November 16 a severe 
loss was incurred through the effort of Gen- 
eral Greene to hold Fort Washington, which 
commanded the Hudson River from the 
heights at the northern end of Manhattan 
Island. This stronghold, besieged by Howe, 
made a fair defence, but was taken by storm 
and the whole garrison captured. The Ameri- 
can army then, in two detachments, under 
Washington and Lee respectively, was obliged 
to retreat across New Jersey, followed by the 
British under Cornwallis, until, by Decem- 
ber 8, the remnant was at Philadelphia in 
a state of great discouragement and demorali- 
zation. The Continental Congress, fearing 
capture, fled to Baltimore and, moved to 
desperate measures, passed a resolution 
giving Washington for six months unlimited 
authority to raise recruits, appoint and dis- 
miss officers, impress provisions and arrest 
loyalists. Howe felt that the rebellion was 
at an end. On November 30 he issued a 
proclamation offering pardon to all who 
would take the oath of allegiance within 
sixty days, and farmers in New Jersey took 
it by hundreds, securing in return a certificate 



CIVIL WAR IN THE EMPIRE 85 

of loyalty. The rebels' cause seemed lost. 
But at the moment when, if ever, it was worth 
while to push pursuit to the uttermost, with 
the prospect of reducing three colonies and 
breaking up all show of resistance, Howe, 
satisfied with his campaign, began to prepare 
winter quarters. 

To the northward a similar fatality seemed 
to prevent full British success. During the 
summer General Guy Carleton waited at the 
northern end of Lake Champlain while his 
carpenters built gunboats. Month after 
month went by until, on October 11, the 
British vessels engaged Arnold's inferior 
flotilla. Two days of hot fighting with 
musketry and cannon resulted in the de- 
struction of the American squadron, so that 
the way seemed clear for Carleton to advance; 
but the season was late, the difficulties of 
getting provisions from Canada seemed ex- 
cessive, and on November 2 the British 
withdrew. Here again only extreme caution 
and slowness permitted the colonial army to 
hold its ground. Yet it seemed doubtful 
whether the American cause might not col- 
lapse even without further pressure, for the 
"armies" were almost gone by sheer dis- 
integration. General Schuyler had a scanty 
3000 near Lake Champlain; Washington 
could not muster over 6000 at Philadelphia, 
and these were on the point of going home. 



86 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

The attempt to carry on the war by volun- 
tary militia fighting was a visible failure. 

At this stage, the darkest hour, Washing- 
ton, who had never dared to risk a battle, 
took the bold step of recrossing the Delaware 
with part of his half-starved and shivering 
troops and captured nearly all of a Hessian 
encampment at Trenton on December 25. 
Further, he drew on Cornwallis to advance 
against him, skirmished successfully on 
January 2, and then, moving by a night 
march to the British rear, defeated a regi- 
ment at Princeton. Cornwallis, with 7000 
men, was out-generaled by Washington in 
this affair, which was the first really aggres- 
sive blow struck by the Americans. The 
result was to lead Howe to abandon the 
effort to hold all of New Jersey, while Wash- 
ington was able to post his men in winter 
quarters at Morristown, where he could 
watch every British move. This masterly 
little campaign, carried on under every dis- 
advantage, made Washington's fame secure, 
and undoubtedly saved the American revolu- 
tion from breaking down. It revived fight- 
ing spirit,' encouraged the Congress and the 
people and created a faith in W^ashington 
on the part of the soldiers and farmers which 
was destined to grow steadily into love and 
veneration. With no particular military 
insight beyond common sense and the com- 



CIVIL WAR IN THE EMPIRE 87 

prehension of military virtues, he was a man 
of iron will, extreme personal courage and a 
patience and tenacity which had no limit. 

Congress now showed that its members 
realized in part the military lesson, for it 
authorized a standing regular army and 
gave Washington power to establish it and 
appoint lower officers. It was a hard task to 
induce any Americans to enlist in such an 
organization, but little by little there were 
collected "Continental troops" who did not 
rush back to their family duties at the end of 
three months, but stayed and grew in dis- 
cipline and steadiness. Yet Washington 
never could count on more than a few thou- 
sand such; Americans in general simply 
would not jfight except under pressure of 
invasion and in defence of their homes. 

During the year 1776-7 the revolted com- 
munities assumed something of the appeajr- 
ance of settled governments. The states re- 
placed their revolutionary conventions with 
constitutions closely modelled upon their 
provincial institutions but with elective 
governors and, to safeguard liberty, with full 
control over legislation, taxation and most 
offices placed in the hands of the legislatures. 
Executive power was confined mainly to 
military matters. The Continental Con- 
gress continued to act as a grand committee 
of safety, framing recommendations and 



88 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

requests to the states and issuing paper 
money on the credit of its constituents. 
Military administration proved a task be- 
yond the capacity of the new governments, 
even for such diminutive armies as those 
which guarded the northern frontier and 
New Jersey, and the forces suffered from lack 
of food, covering and powder. The country 
had few sources of supplies and wretched 
roads. 

In 1777, when spring opened, the British 
armies slowly prepared to push matters to a 
definite conclusion. The North cabinet, 
especially Lord George Germaine, had no 
single coherent plan of operations beyond 
continuing the lines laid down in 1776. It 
was early planned to have the Canadian 
force march southward and join Howe, col- 
lecting supplies and gathering recruits as it 
traversed New York. Howe was told that 
he was expected to cooperate, but was not 
prevented from substituting a plan of his 
own which involved capturing Philadelphia, 
the chief American town, and, as the seat 
of the Continental Congress, the "rebel 
capital." Germaine merely intimated that 
Howe ought to make such speedy work as 
to return in time to meet the Canadian force, 
but did not give him any positive order, so 
Howe considered his plan approved. In 
leisurely fashion he tried twice to march 



CIVIL WAR IN THE EMPIRE 89 

across New Jersey in June, but, although 
he had 17,000 to Washington's 8000, he 
would not risk leaving the latter in his rear 
and withdrew. He next determined to move 
by water, and began the sea journey on 
July 5. This process occupied not less than 
six weeks, since he first tried to sail up the 
Delaware, only to withdraw from before 
the American forts; and it was not until 
August 22 that he finally landed his men 
at the head of Chesapeake Bay. 

Meanwhile General Burgoyne, a man of 
fashion as well as an officer, began his march 
southward from Lake Champlain with 7500 
men and some Indian allies, forced the 
Americans to evacuate Fort Ticonderoga 
without a blow, and chased the garrison to 
the southward and eastward. Pushing for- 
ward in spite of blocked roads and burned 
bridges, he reached the Hudson River on 
August 1 without mishap and there halted 
to collect provisions and await reinforce- 
ments from Tories and from a converging 
expedition under St. Leger, which was to join 
him by way of Lake Ontario and the Mohawk 
Valley. Up to this time the American defence 
had been futile. It seemed as though noth- 
ing could stop Burgoyne's advance. Con- 
gress now appointed a new general, Gates, 
to whom Washington sent General Morgan 
with some of his best troops. While Burgoyne 



90 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

waited, the militia of New England began 
collecting, and presently, on August 15 and 16, 
two detachments of the British sent to seize 
stores at Bennington were surrounded and 
captured. St. Leger, unable to manage his 
Indian allies, or force the surrender of the 
American fort Stanwix, was obliged, on 
August 22, to retreat. Burgoyne, with 
diminishing forces and no hope of reinforce- 
ment, found himself confronted by rapidly 
growing swarms of enemies. At the moment 
when his need of cooperation from Howe 
became acute, the latter general was two 
hundred miles away in Pennsylvania. 

Under the circumstances the two cam- 
paigns worked themselves out to independent 
conclusions. In Pennsylvania Washington 
boldly marched his summer army with its 
nucleus of veterans out to meet the British 
and challenged a battle along the banks of 
the Brandy wine creek. On September 11, 
Howe, with 18,000, methodically attacked 
Washington, who had not over 11,000, sent 
a flanking column around his right wing and 
after a stiff resistance pushed the Americans 
from the field. There was no pursuit, and 
four days later W^ashington was prevented 
only by bad weather from risking another 
fight. He did not feel able to prevent Howe 
from entering Philadelphia on September 27, 
but on October 3, taking advantage of a 



CIVIL WAR IN THE EMPIRE 91 

division of the British army, he assumed the 
offensive at Germantown and brought his 
unsteady forces into action, only to suffer 
another defeat. With this Washington was 
forced to abandon operations in the field 
and to go into winter quarters at Valley 
Forge, not far from the city, while Howe 
besieged and on November 2 took the 
American forts on the Delaware. The 
British campaign was successful, Philadel- 
phia was theirs and they had won every 
engagement. But nothing shows more clearly 
Washington's ability as a fighter and leader 
than his stubborn contest against odds in 
this summer. 

Meanwhile the Northern campaign came 
to its conclusion. By September, Gates, the 
new commander, found himself at the head 
of nearly 20,000 men, and Burgoyne's case 
grew desperate. He made two efforts to 
break through to the southward, at Freeman's 
Farm, and again at Bemis Heights, but was 
met by superior numbers and overwhelmed 
in spite of the gallantry of his troops. Forced 
back to Saratoga on the Hudson River, he 
was surrounded and at length compelled to 
surrender, on October 17. Sir Henry Clin- 
ton, who commanded the British garrison of 
New York in Howe's absence, sent a small 
expedition up the Hudson, but it did not 
penetrate nearer than sixty miles from the 



92 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

spot where Burgoyne stood at bay, and it 
achieved nothing more than a raid. So the 
northern British force, sent to perform an 
impossible task, was destroyed solely be- 
cause neither Howe nor his superiors realized 
the necessity of providing for certain coopera- 
tion from the southward. The prisoners, 
according to the terms of the surrender, 
were to be returned to England, but Congress, 
owing in part to some complaints of Burgoyne, 
chose to violate the agreement, and the cap- 
tive British and Hessians were retained. 
Burgoyne himself returned to England, burn- 
ing with anger against Howe and the North 
ministry. 

The winter of 1777-8 found the two British 
armies comfortably housed in New York 
and Philadelphia, and Washington, with his 
handful of miserably equipped men, present- 
ing the skeleton of an army at Valley Forge. 
Congress, now manned by less able leaders 
than at first, was almost won over to dis- 
placing the unsuccessful commander by 
Gates, the victor of Saratoga, and it did go 
so far as to commit the administration of the 
army to a cabal of Gates's friends, who 
carried on a campaign of depreciation and 
backbiting against Washington. But the 
whole unworthy plot broke down under a few 
vigorous words from the latter, the would-be 
rival quailing before the Virginian's personal 



CIVIL WAR IN THE EMPIRE 93 

authority. He was not a safe man to bait. 
The military headship remained securely 
with the one general capable of holding 
things together. 

In the winter of 1778, however, a new ele- 
ment entered the game, namely, the possi- 
bility of French intervention. From the 
outbreak of the Revolution very many Ameri- 
cans saw that their former deadly enemy, 
France, would be likely to prove an ally 
against England, and as early as 1776 Ameri- 
can emissaries began to sound the court of 
Versailles. In March, 1776, Silas Deane was 
regularly commissioned by the Continental 
Congress, and in the autumn he was followed 
by no less a person than Benjamin Franklin. 
It was the duty of these men to get whatever 
aid they could, but especially to seek an alli- 
ance. The young King, Louis XVT, was not a 
man of any independent statecraft, but his 
ministers, above all Vergennes, in charge of 
foreign affairs, were anxious to secure revenge 
upon England for the damage done by Pitt, 
and the tone of the French court was em- 
phatically warlike. The financial weakness 
of the French government, destined shortly 
to pave the way for the Revolution, was 
clearly visible to Turgot, the minister of 
finances, and he with a few others protested 
against the expense of a foreign war; but 
Vergennes carried the day. 



94 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

As early as the summer of 1776 French 
arms and munitions were being secretly 
supplied, while the foreign minister solemnly 
assured the watchful Lord Stormont, the 
English ambassador, of his government's 
perfect neutrality. Thousands of muskets, 
hundreds of cannon, and quantities of clothes 
were thus shipped, and sums of money were 
also turned over to Franklin. Beaumar- 
chais, the playwright and adventurer, acted 
with gusto the part of intermediary, and the 
lords and ladies of the French court, amus- 
ing themselves with "philosophy" and specu- 
lative liberalism, made a pet of the witty 
and sagacious Franklin, His popularity 
actually rivalled that of Voltaire when the 
latter, in 1778, returned to see Paris and die. 
But not until the colonies had proved that 
they could meet the English in battle with 
some prospect of success would the French 
commit themselves openly, and during 1776 
and 1777 the tide ran too steadily against 
the insurgents. Finally, in December, when 
the anxieties of Franklin and his associates 
were almost unendurable, the news of Bur- 
goyne's surrender was brought to Paris. 
The turning point was reached. Vergennes 
immediately led the French King to make 
two treaties, one for commercial reciprocity, 
the other a treaty of military alliance, recog- 
nizing the independence of the United States 



CIVIL WAR IN THE EMPIRE 95 

and pledging the countries to make no sepa- 
rate peace. In the spring of 1778 the news 
reached America and the war now entered 
upon a second stage. 

There can be little doubt, however, that 
under abler commanders the British armies 
might have crushed out all armed resistance 
in the middle colonies. In spite of all draw- 
backs, the trained British soldiers and officers 
were so superior in the field to the American 
levies on every occasion where the forces 
were not overwhelmingly unequal that it is 
impossible for any but the most bigoted 
American partisan to deny this possibility. 
Had there been a blockade, so that French 
and Dutch goods would have been excluded; 
had General Howe possessed the faintest 
spark of energy in following up his successes; 
had the North cabinet not failed to compel 
Howe to cooperate with Burgoyne, the con- 
dition of things in 1778 might well have been 
so serious for the colonists' cause that Ver- 
gennes would have felt a French intervention 
to be fruitless. In that case it is hard to see 
how the rebellion could have failed to be 
crushed in the next year. As it was, the 
Americans, by luck and by the tenacity of 
Washington and a few otherileaders, had won 
the first victory. 



96 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 
CHAPTER V 

FRENCH INTERVENTION AND BRITISH FAILURE,, 

1778-1781 

During the two years of fighting the party 
situation in England had grown increasingly 
bitter. The Whigs, joined now by young 
Charles Fox, unremittingly denounced the 
war as a crime, sympathized with the rebels 
and execrated the cruelty of the ministers 
while deriding their abilities. Parliament 
rang with vituperation; personal insults flew 
back and forth. From time to time Chatham 
took part in the attack, joining Burke and 
Fox in an opposition never surpassed for 
oratorical power. But the ministerial party, 
secure in its strength, pushed on its way. 
The King now regarded the war as the issue 
upon which he had staked his personal honor 
and would tolerate no faltering. Yet in the 
winter of 1778 the rumors of a French alli- 
ance thickened, and, when the probability 
seemed to be a certainty. North made a 
desperate effort to end the war through a 
policy of granting everything except inde- 
pendence. In a speech of incredible assur- 
ance he observed that he had never favored 
trying to tax America and brought in a bill 
by which every parliamentary measure com- 
plained of by the Americans was repealed 



FRENCH INTERVENTION 07 

and the right of internal taxation was ex- 
pressly renounced. Amid the dejection of 
the Tories and the sneers of the Whigs this 
measure became law, March 2, 1778, and 
commissioners, empowered to grant general 
amnesty, were sent with it to the United 
States. 

At no other time in English history would 
it have been possible for a ministry thus ut- 
terly to reverse its policy and remain in oflSce, 
but North's tenure depended on influences 
outside the House of Commons, and he con- 
tinued in his place. So severe was the crisis, 
however, that an effort was made to arrange 
a coalition ministry, with the aged Chatham 
at its head; but George III positively refused 
to permit North to surrender the first place. 
He would consent to Whigs entering the cabi- 
net only in subordinate positions. This 
obstinacy and the sudden death of Chatham 
blocked all coalition proposals and left the 
war to continue as a party measure, not 
national in its character, — the "King's war." 

In America the task of the commissioners 
proved hopeless. The men now in control of 
the Continental Congress and the state 
governments were pledged to independence 
from the bottom of their souls, and in the 
course of months of appeals, and attempts at 
negotiations, the commissioners failed to 
secure even a hearing. Congress did not 



98 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

hesitate to ratify the French treaties with 
enthusiasm. That their proposal if made 
before the Declaration would have been suc- 
cessful can scarcely be doubted. It might 
even have produced an effect after 1776 had 
it been made by a Whig ministry, headed by 
Chatham. But coming in 1778, after three 
years of war, when every vestige of the former 
sentiment of loyalty was dead, and offered 
by the same North ministry which had 
brought on the revolution, it was foredoomed 
to defeat. 

The war now entered upon a second phase, 
in which England found itself harder pressed 
thaii at any time in its history. It had not 
an ally in the world, and could count on no 
Rhine campaigns to exhaust French resources. 
For the first time England engaged France 
in a purely naval war, and for the only time 
France was sufficiently strong in sail-of-the- 
line to meet England on equal terms. The 
French fleet, rebuilt since 1763, was in ex- 
cellent condition; the British navy, on the 
contrary, under the slack administration of 
Lord Sandwich, was worse off in equipment, 
repairs, number of sailors and esprit de corps 
than at any time in the century. The French 
were able to send fleets unhindered wherever 
they wished, and when Spain entered as an 
ally, in 1779, their combined navies swept 
the channel, driving the humiliated British 



FRENCH INTERVENTION 99 

fleet into port. England was called upon to 
make defensive war at home, at Gibraltar, 
in the West Indies and finally in India, at a 
time when the full strength of the country- 
was already occupied with the rebellion. 

This led to an alteration of military meth- 
ods in America. The policy of moving heavy 
armies was abandoned, and the British, 
forced to withdraw troops to garrison the 
West Indies and Florida, began the practice 
of wearing down the revolted colonies by 
raids and destruction of property. George III 
especially approved this punitive policy. As 
a first step, the army in Philadelphia marched 
back to New York, attacked on its retreat by 
Washington at Monmouth on June 27, 1778. 
The American advance was badly handled 
by General Lee and fell back before the 
British, but Washington in person rallied his 
men, resumed the attack and held his posi- 
tion. Clinton, who succeeded Howe, con- 
tinued his march, and the British army now 
settled down in New York, not to depart 
from its safe protection except on raids. 

Washington accordingly posted his forces, 
as in 1777, outside the city and awaited 
events. He could assume the offensive only 
in case a French fleet should assist him, and 
this happened but twice, in 1778, and not 
again for three years. The first time Admiral 
D'Estaing with a strong fleet menaced first 



100 ENGLISH AND AMEMCAN WARS 

New York and then Newport, the latter in 
conjunction with an American land force. 
But before each port he was foiled by the 
superior skill of Admiral Howe, and he finally 
withdrew without risking a battle, to the 
intense disgust of the Americans. For the 
rest, the war in the northern states dwindled 
to raids by the English along the Connecti- 
cut coast and into New Jersey, and outpost 
affairs on the Hudson, in some of which Wash- 
ington's Continental troops showed real 
brilliancy in attack. But with the British in 
command of the sea little could be done to 
meet the raids, and southern Connecticut was 
ravaged with fire and sword. 

At the same time the states suffered the 
horrors of Indian war, since the Tories and 
British from Canada utilized the Iroquois 
and the Ohio Valley Indians as allies. The 
New York frontier was in continual distress, 
and the Pennsylvania and Maryland and 
Virginia settlements felt the scalping knife 
and torch. Hamilton, the British commander 
at the post of Detroit, paid a fixed price for 
scalps, and was known as "the hair buyer." 
Against the Iroquois, Sullivan led an expedi- 
tion in 1779 which could not bring the savages 
to a decisive battle, although he ravaged 
their lands and crippled their resources. 
Against the northwestern Indians a daring 
Virginian, George Rogers Clark, led a counter- 



FRENCH INTERVENTION 101 

raid which captured several posts in the 
territory north of the Ohio River and finally 
took Hamilton himself prisoner at Vincennes. 
But in every such war the sufferings of the 
settlers outnumbered a hundred-fold all that 
they could inflict in return, and this con- 
sciousness burned into their souls a lasting 
hatred of England, the ally of the murdering, 
torturing devils from the forests. 

While the English fleets fought indecisive 
actions in European waters, or near the West 
Indies, the British raiding policy was trans- 
ferred to a new region, namely, the southern 
states, which thus far had known little of the 
severities of war. In December, 1778, an 
expedition under Prevost easily occupied 
Savannah, driving the Georgia militia away. 
The next year an effort was made by an Amer- 
ican force, in combination with the French 
fleet under D'Estaing, who returned from 
the West Indies, to recapture the place. The 
siege was formed and there appeared some 
prospects of a successful outcome, but the 
French admiral, too restless to wait until the 
completion of siege operations, insisted on 
trying to take the city by storm on October 9. 
The result was a complete repulse, after 
which D'Estaing sailed away and the Ameri- 
can besiegers were obliged to withdraw. The 
real interests of the French were, in fact, in 
the West Indies, where they were gradually 



102 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

capturing English islands, and their contri- 
butions so far to the American cause con- 
sisted in gifts of munitions and loans of 
money, together with numerous adventurous 
officers who aspired to lead the American 
armies. The most amiable and attractive of 
these was the young Marquis de Lafayette, 
owing largely to whose influence a force of 
French soldiers under de Rochambeau was 
sent in 1780 to America. But for months this 
force was able to do no more than remain in 
camp at Newport, Rhode Island, blockaded 
by the English fleet. 

In 1780 the British raiding policy was re- 
sumed in the southern states and achieved a 
fairly startling success. In January Clinton 
sailed from New York with a force of 8000 
men, and after driving the American levies 
into the city of Charleston, South Carolina, 
besieged and took it May 12, with all its 
defenders. He then returned to New York, 
leaving Lord Cornwallis with a few troops to 
complete the conquest of the state. Congress 
now sent General Gates southward to repeat 
the triumph of Saratoga. At Camden, on 
August 16, 1780, the issue was decided. The 
American commander with only 3000 men, 
encountered Cornwallis, who had about 2200, 
and, as usual, the militia, when attacked by 
British in the open field, fled for their lives 
at the first charge of the redcoats, leaving 



FRENCH INTERVENTION 103 

the few continentals to be outnumbered and 
crushed. 

For a period of several weeks all organ- 
ized American resistance disappeared. Only 
bands of guerillas, or "partisans," as they 
were called, kept the field. Clinton had 
issued a proclamation calling all loyalists 
to join the ranks, and Cornwallis made a 
systematic effort to compel the enrolment 
of Tory militia. The plan bore fruit in 
an apparent large increase of British num- 
bers, but also in the outbreak of a murderous 
civil war. Raiding parties on both sides 
took to ambuscades, nocturnal house-burn- 
ing, hanging of prisoners and downright 
massacres. Preeminent for his success 
was the British Colonel Tarleton, who 
with a body of light troops swept tirelessly 
around, breaking up rebel bands, riding down 
militia and rendering his command a terror to 
the state. Marion, Sumter and other Ameri- 
cans struggled vainly to equal his exploits. 

Even occasional American successes could 
not turn back the tide. On October 18, 
1780, a band of Tories under General Fergu- 
son ventured too far to the westward, and at 
King's Mountain were surrounded and shot 
or taken prisoners by a general uprising of 
the frontiersmen. General Greene, who 
replaced Gates in December, managed to 
rally a few men, but dared not meet Corn- 



104 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

wallis in the field. His lieutenant, Morgan, 
when pursued by Tarleton, turned on him 
at the Cowpens, and on January 17 managed 
to inflict a severe defeat. The forces were 
diminutive, — ^less than a thousand on each 
side, — but the battle was skilfully fought. 
After it, however, both Morgan and Greene 
were forced to fly northward and did not 
escape Corn wallis 's pursuit until they were 
driven out of North Carolina. The state 
seemed lost, and on February 23, Corn- 
wallis issued a proclamation calling upon 
all loyalists to join the royal forces. Mean- 
while, encouraged by the striking successes 
in the Carolinas, Clinton sent a force under 
Arnold to Virginia, which marched unopposed 
through the seaboard counties of that state 
in the winter of 1781. It seemed as though 
the new British policy were on the verge of a 
great triumph. 

By this time it was becoming a grave 
question whether the American revolution 
was not going to collapse from sheer weak- 
ness; for the confederation, as a general 
government, seemed to be on the verge of 
breaking down. The state governments, al- 
though badly hampered wherever British 
raids took place, were operating regularly 
and steadily, but the only common govern- 
ment continued to be the voluntary Con- 
tinental Congress, whose powers were entirely 



FRENCH INTERVENTION 105 

undefined and rested, in fact, on sufferance. 
In 1776 a committee, headed by John Dickin- 
son, drafted Articles of Confederation which, 
if adopted promptly, would have provided 
a regular form of government; but, although 
these were submitted in 1777 for ratifica- 
tion, interstate jealousy sufficed to block 
their acceptance. It was discovered that all 
those states which, by their original charters, 
were given no definite western boundaries, 
were disposed to claim an extension of 
their territory to the Mississippi River. 
Virginia, through her general, Clark, actually 
occupied part of the region claimed by her, 
and assumed to grant lands there. The 
representatives of Maryland in Congress 
declared such inequality a danger to the 
union and refused to sign the Articles unless 
the land claims west of the mountains were 
surrendered to the general government. 
This determination was formally approved 
by the Maryland legislature in February, 
1779, and matters remained at a standstill. 
At last, in 1780, Congress offered to hold any 
lands which might be granted to it, with the 
pledge to form them into states, and, fol- 
lowing this. New York and Virginia inti- 
mated a willingness to make the required 
cessions. Then Maryland yielded and rati- 
fied the Articles, so that they went into 
operation on March 2, 1781. 



106 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

Meanwhile the self-styled "United States" 
had traveled so far on the road to bankruptcy 
that the adoption of the "Articles of Per- 
petual Union" seemed scarcely more than 
an empty form. In the first place the fed- 
eral finances were prostrate. The device 
of issuing paper money had proved fatal, 
for, after a brief period, in 1775, the ex- 
cessive issues depreciated in spite of every 
effort to hinder their decline by proclama- 
tions, price conventions and political pres- 
sure. The only way of sustaining such 
notes, namely, the furnishing by the states 
of a full and sufficient revenue, was never 
attempted; for the states themselves pre- 
ferred to issue notes, rather than to tax, 
and when called upon by the Continental 
Congress for requisitions they turned over 
such amounts of paper as they saw fit. 
By 1780 the "continental currency" was 
practically worthless. Congress could rely 
only upon such small sums of money as it 
could raise by foreign loans through Frank- 
lin and by the contributions of a few pa- 
triotic people, notably Robert Morris. 

Under the circumstances the maintenance 
of the army exhausted the resources of Con- 
gress and every winter saw the story of Valley 
Forge repeated. To secure supplies Congress 
was driven to authorize seizure and impress- 
ment of food and payment in certificates 



FRENCH INTERVENTION 107 

of indebtedness. It was for this reason, as 
well as from the unwillingness of the Ameri- 
cans to enlist for the war, that the Continen- 
tal forces dwindled to diminutive numbers 
in 1781. Nothing but Washington's tireless 
tenacity and loyalty held the army together 
and kept the officers from resigning in dis- 
gust. Yet it seemed impossible that Wash- 
ington himself could carry the burden 
much longer. The general government ap- 
peared to be on the point of disintegrating, 
leaving to the separate states the task of de- 
fending themselves. Everywhere lassitude, 
preoccupation with local matters, a disposi- 
tion to leave the war to the French, a willing- 
ness to let other states bear the burdens, 
replaced the fervor of 1776. In other words, 
the old colonial habits were reasserting them- 
selves and the separate states, reverting 
to their former accustomed negative poli- 
tics, were behaving toward the Continental 
Congress precisely as they had done toward 
England itself during the French wars. 
With hundreds of thousands of men of 
fighting age in America it was impossible, 
in 1781, to collect more than a handful 
for service away from their homes. The 
essentially unmilitary nature of the Ameri- 
cans was not to be changed. 

Fortunately for the rebels, the policy of 
Great Britain was such as to give them a 



108 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

lease of hope. In spite of the great British 
naval power during the first two years of 
the war, no blockade had been attempted, 
and after 1778 the British fleets were thor- 
oughly occupied in following and foiling the 
French. The result was that commerce 
of a sort continued throughout the war, 
armed privateers and merchantmen ven- 
turing from the New England and other 
ports and trading with France, Spain and 
the West Indies. Hundreds of these were 
taken by British cruisers, but hundreds more 
continued their dangerous trade, and so 
America continued to receive imports. The 
Dutch, especially, served to supply the 
revolted colonies with some of the commodi- 
ties which their exclusion from British 
ports rendered scarce. So, except for paper 
money, there was no economic distress. 

In 1781, when if ever the British might hope 
to reduce the colonies, the Empire was itself 
in sore straits for men to fill its ships and 
garrison its forts. This made it difficult 
for England to send any reinforcements 
to America, and left Clinton and Corn- 
wallis with about 27,000 men to complete 
their raiding campaign. The task proved 
excessive. In March, 1781, Greene, having 
assembled a small force, gave battle to Corn- 
wallis at Guilford Court House. The little 
army of British veterans, only 2219 in all. 



FRENCH INTERVENTION 109 

drove Greene from the field after a stiff 
fight, but were so reduced in numbers that 
Cornwallis felt obliged to retreat to Wil- 
mington on the coast, where he was entirely 
out of the field of campaign. On April 25 
he marched northward into Virginia to 
join the force which had been there for several 
months, took command, and continued the 
policy of marching and destroying. Before 
his arrival Washington had tried to use the 
French force at Newport against the Vir- 
ginia raiders, but the French squadron, 
although it ventured from port in March, 
1781, and had a successful encounter with 
a British fleet, declined to push on into the 
Chesapeake and the plan was abandoned. 
Cornwallis was able to march unhindered 
by any French danger during the summer 
of 1781. 

But while the British were terrifying Vir- 
ginia and chasing militia, the forces left 
in the Carolinas were being worn down by 
Greene and his ''partisan" allies. On April 
25, at Hobkirk's Hill, Rawdon, the British 
commander defeated Greene and then, with 
reduced ranks, retreated. During the sum- 
mer further sieges and raids recaptured 
British posts, and on September 8 another 
battle took place at Eutaw Springs. This 
resulted, as usual, in a British success on 
the battlefield and a retreat afterwards. 



no ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

By October the slender British forces in 
the southernmost states were cooped up in 
Charleston and Savannah and a war of 
extermination was stamping out all organ- 
ized Tory resistance. The raiding policy 
had failed through weakness of numbers. 
The superior fighting ability and tactical 
skill of Cornwallis, Rawdon, Stuart and 
Tarleton were as obvious as the courage 
and steadiness of their troops, but their means 
were pitifully inadequate to the task as- 
signed them. 

Further north a still greater failure took 
place. Washington was not deterred by 
the futile outcome of his previous attempts 
to use French cooperation from making 
a patient and urgent effort to induce De 
Grasse, the French admiral in the West 
Indies, to come north and join with him 
and Rochambeau in an attack on Corn- 
wallis in Virginia. He was at last successful, 
and on August 28 the wished-for fleet, a 
powerful collection of 28 sail-of-the-line, 
with frigates, reached Chesapeake Bay. Al- 
ready the French troops from Newport, and 
part of the American army from outside 
New York, had begun their southward 
march, carefully concealing their purposes 
from Clinton, and were moving through 
Pennsylvania. As a third part of the com- 
bination, the French squadron from New- 



FRENCH INTERVENTION 111 

port put to sea, bringing eight more sail-of- 
the-line, which, added to De Grasse's, would 
overmatch any British fleet on the western 
side of the Atlantic. 

The one disturbing possibility was that 
the British West India fleet, which very 
properly had sailed in pursuit, might defeat 
the two French fleets singly. This chance 
was put to the test on September 5. On 
that day Admiral Graves, with nineteen men- 
of-war, attacked De Grasse, who brought 
twenty-four into line outside Chesapeake 
Bay, and the decisive action of the Revo- 
lution took place. Seldom has a greater 
stake been played for by a British fleet, and 
seldom has a naval battle been less success- 
fully managed. Graves may have intended 
to concentrate upon part of the French 
line, but his subordinates certainly failed 
to understand any such purpose, and the 
outcome was that the head of the British 
column, approaching the French line at 
an angle, was severely handled, while the 
rear took no part in the battle. The fleets 
separated without decisive result and the 
British, after cruising a few days irreso- 
lutely, gave up and returned to New York. 
The other French squadron had meanwhile 
arrived and the allied troops had come down 
the Chesapeake. Cornwallis, shut up in 
Yorktown by overwhelming forces, defended 



112 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

himself until October 17 and tlien surrendered 
with 8000 men to the man who had beaten 
him years before at Trenton and Princeton. 
Clinton, aware at last of his danger, sailed 
with every vessel he could scrape together 
and approached the bay on October 24 with 
twenty-five sail-of-the-line and 7000 men; 
but it was too late. He could only retreat to 
New York, where he 'remained in the sole 
British foothold north of Charleston and 
Savannah. 

Washington would have been glad to 
retain De Grasse and undertake further 
combined manoeuvres, but the French ad- 
miral was anxious to return to the West 
Indies and so the military operations of the 
year ended. More was in reality unnecessary 
for the collapse of the British military policy 
was manifest and the surrender of Com- 
wallis was a sufficiently striking event to 
bring the war to a close. Washington had 
not won the last fight with his own Con- 
tinentals. The cooperation not only of 
the French fleet but of the French troops 
under Rochambeau had played the decisive 
part. Yet it was his planning, his tenacity, 
his personal authority with French and 
Americans that determined the combined 
operation und made it successful. In the 
midst of a half-starved, ill-equipped army, 
a disintegrating, bankrupt government, and 



AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 113 

a people whose fighting spirit was rapidly 
dwindling, it was he with his officers who had 
saved the Revolution at the last gasp. 

But it was no less the British mismanage- 
ment which made this possible, for had 
not Howe, by delays, thrown away his 
chances; had not Howe and Burgoyne and 
Clinton and Cornwallis, by their failures to 
cooperate, made it possible for their armies 
to be taken separately; had not the navy 
omitted to apply a blockade; had not the 
ministry, in prescribing a raiding policy, 
failed to strain every nerve to furnish an 
adequate supply of men, the outcome would 
have been different. As it was, the British 
defeat could no longer be concealed by the 
end of 1781. The attempt to conquer Amer- 
ica had failed. 



CHAPTER VI 

ENGLISH PARTIES AND AMERICAN INDEPEN- 
DENCE, 1778-1883 

When the news of the surrender of Corn- 
wallis at Yorktown reached England it 
was recognized by Whigs and Tories alike 
that the time had come to admit the failure 
of the war. The loss of 7000 troops was not 
in itself a severe blow, at a time when Eng- 
land had over 200,000 men under arms in 



114 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

various parts of the world; but it actually 
marked the breakdown of the American 
campaign, and, what was still more signi- 
ficant, the political bankruptcy of the North 
ministry. Ever since 1778 the tide had been 
rising against the royal policy. At first, 
when the French war began, the nation 
rallied against the ancient foe and there was 
some enthusiasm displayed in recruiting 
and furnishing supplies; but as general after 
general returned from America, — first Bur- 
goyne, then Howe and his brother, the 
admiral, — to rise in Parliament and de- 
nounce the administrative incompetence 
which had foiled their efforts; as month after 
month passed and no victory either in 
America or Europe came to cheer the public; 
worst of all when, in 1779, and again in 1780, 
combined French and Spanish fleets swept 
the Channel in overpowering numbers, driv- 
ing the English fleet into Torbay harbor, 
— the war spirit dwindled and bitter criticism 
took its place. 

The Whig opposition, no longer hampered 
by having the defence of the revolted col- 
onists as their sole issue, denounced in 
unmeasured language the incompetence, cor- 
ruption and despotism of the North ministry, 
singling out Sandwich, in the Admiralty, and 
Germaine, Secretary for the Colonies, as ob- 
jects for especial invective. Party hatred 



AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 115 

festered in army and navy. Whig and Tory 
admirals distrusting each other and engaging 
in bitter quarrels. Whig and Tory generals 
criticising one another's plans and motives. 
On his part Lord North felt, as early as 1779, 
that his task was hopeless, and sought repeat- 
edly to resign; but in spite of secessions from 
the ministry, in spite of defeats and humili- 
ations such as the control by the allies of 
the Channel, nothing could shake George's 
determination. He would never consent 
to abandon the colonies or permit North 
to surrender to the detested Whigs. 

In 1780 the opposition, led by Fox and 
Burke, began to direct its fire at the King 
himself, and finally, in March of that year, 
they had the satisfaction of carrying in the 
Commons, by votes of men who once had 
been on the administration side, a resolution 
to the effect that "the power of the Crown 
has increased, is increasing, and ought to 
be diminished." This passed, 233 to 215, 
in a house where four years before the 
total opposition mustered only a hundred. 
Measures to cut down sinecures, to limit 
the secret service fund, to take away op- 
portunities for royal corruption, were in- 
troduced by Burke and, although defeated, 
drew large votes. 

But the tenacious politician who wore the 
crown was not yet beaten. In the summer 



116 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

of 1780 the disgraceful Gordon riots broke 
out in London and the King, by his coura- 
geous personal bearing and bold direction 
of affairs, won momentary prestige . The news 
from America, moreover, was brighter than for 
a long time, and the British defence of Gibral- 
tar was unshaken. Suddenly dissolving 
Parliament, the King employed every resource 
of influence or pressure, and managed to se- 
cure once more a majority in the House of 
Commons. During the year 1781 the North 
ministry breathed more freely and was 
able to repel Whig attacks by safe majori- 
ties. But the respite was short. 

In the winter session of 1782 the news of 
Yorktown shook the ministry to its centre, 
and on top of that came the reports of 
the surrender of Minorca, St. Kitts and 
Nevis. Held together only by the inflexible 
determination of George III never to yield 
American independence or "stoop to oppo- 
sition," the ministers fought bitterly but 
despairingly against a succession of Whig 
motions, censuring the Admiralty, demanding 
the withdrawal of the troops and finally cen- 
suring the ministry. Majorities dwindled as 
rats began to leave the sinking ship. On 
March 8 North escaped censure by ten votes 
only. The King made repeated efforts to in- 
duce members of the opposition to come 
into some sort of coalition, but the hatred 



AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 117 

was too fierce, the divergence of principle 
too wide. Rockingham would accept only 
absolute surrender. On March 15 a reso- 
lution of want of confidence was lost by 
nine only. 

Five days later, in the face of a renewed 
motion of the same kind, North announced 
his resignation. The end had come. The 
system of George III had broken down, 
ruined by the weaknesses of the Tory cabinet 
in administration, in war and in diplomacy, 
the most disastrous ministry in. the history 
of England. There was no possible doubt as 
to the significance of the collapse, for Lord 
Rockingham took office with a Whig cabinet, 
containing Shelburne and Fox, steadfast 
friends of America, as secretaries of state, 
and with the avowed purpose of conceding 
independence to the former colonies, while 
maintaining the contest with Spain and 
France. 

Interest now shifted from the battlefield 
to the regions of diplomacy, where the 
situation was complicated and delicate, ow- 
ing to the unusual relations of the parties 
involved. The United States and France 
were in alliance, each pledged not to make 
a separate peace. Spain was in alliance 
with France for the purpose of recovering 
Gibraltar, Minorca and Florida, but was not 
in any alliance with the United States. 



118 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

The French government, tied thus to two 
allies, recognized the possible contingency 
of diverging interests between Spain and 
the United States and exerted all the in- 
fluence it could to keep diplomatic control 
in its own hands. This it accomplished 
through its representatives in America, es- 
pecially de la Luzerne, who wielded an 
immense prestige with the members of the 
Continental Congress, not only through 
his position as representative of the power 
whose military, naval and financial aid 
was absolutely indispensible, but also by 
means of personal intrigues of a type hither- 
to more familiar in European courts than in 
simple America. Under his direction Con- 
gress authorized its European representatives, 
Franklin, Jay and Adams, accredited to 
France, Spain and the Netherlands respec- 
tively, to act as peace commissioners and 
to be guided in all things by the advice and 
consent of the French minister, Vergennes. 
Their instructions designated boundaries, 
indemnity for ravages and for the taking 
of slaves, and a possible cession of Canada, 
but all were made subject to French ap- 
proval. When, accordingly, in 1781, both 
Shelburne and Fox of the Rockingham min- 
istry sought to open negotiations with the 
American representatives, while pushing on 
vigorously the war against France and Spain, 



AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 119 

they interjected an embarrassing element 
into the situation. Vergennes could not 
prohibit American negotiation, but he relied 
upon the instructions of the commissioners 
to enable him to prevent the making of any 
separate peace, contrary to the treaty of 
1778. 

The first steps were taken by Franklin 
and Shelburne, who opened unofficial nego- 
tiations through Richard Oswald, a friend 
of America. It seems to have been Shel- 
burne 's plan to avoid the preliminary conces- 
sion of independence, hoping to retain some 
form of connection between America and 
England, or at least to use independence as 
a make- weight in the negotiations. Hence 
Oswald, his agent, was not commissioned 
to deal with the United States as such. 
Fox, on the other hand. Secretary for For- 
eign Affairs, felt that the negotiation be- 
longed in his field, and he sent Thomas Gren- 
ville to Paris, authorized to deal with France 
and, indirectly, with the United States. 
Over this difference in the cabinet, and over 
other matters, an acute personal rivalry 
developed between Fox and Shelburne, which 
culminated when Rockingham died in July, 
1782. George III, who much preferred Shel- 
burne to Fox, asked him to form a ministry, 
and upon his acceptance Fox, absolutely 
refusing to serve under him, withdrew from 



120 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

the cabinet, carrying his friends with him. 
Thus the triumphant Whig party was spHt 
within a few months after its victory. 
The whole responsibility now rested on 
Shelburne. 

Meanwhile a new situation had devel- 
oped in Paris, for Jay and Adams, the 
other two commissioners, had brought about 
a change in the American policy. Frank- 
lin, deeply indebted to the French court 
and on the best of terms with Vergennes, 
was willing to credit him with good inten- 
tions and was ready to accept his advice to 
negotiate with England under the vague 
terms of Oswald's commission; but Jay, 
who had had a mortifying experience in 
Spain, suspected treachery and insisted that 
England must, in opening negotiations, fully 
recognize American independence. He was 
sure that Spain would gladly see the United 
States shut in to the Atlantic coast away 
from Spanish territory, and he felt certain 
that Vergennes was under Spanish in- 
fluence. Adams, who knew nothing of Spain, 
but distrusted the French on general prin- 
ciples, sided with Jay, and Franklin, sub- 
mitting to his colleagues, agreed to a curious 
diplomatic manoeuvre. Jay sent to Shel- 
burne a secret message, urging him to deal 
separately with the United States under a 
proper commission and not seek to play 



AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 121 

into the hands of Spain and France. He 
knew that a French emissary had visited 
Shelburne and he dreaded French double- 
dealing, especially on the question of boun- 
daries and fishery rights. 

The British prime minister was in the 
odd position of being appealed to by one of the 
three hostile powers to save it from the other 
two, but underlying the situation was the 
fact that Shelburne, as a Whig since the 
beginning of the American quarrel, was com- 
mitted to a friendly policy toward America. 
He knew, moreover, that when Parlia- 
ment should meet he must expect trouble 
from Fox and the dissatisfied Whigs, as 
well as the Tories, and he was anxious to 
secure a treaty as soon as possible. So 
yielding, on September 27, he gave Oswald 
the required commission, but, suspecting 
that he was rather too complaisant, sent 
Henry Strachey to assist him. During the 
summer Franklin and Oswald, in informal 
discussions, had already eliminated various 
matters, so that when negotiations formally 
opened it took not over five weeks to agree 
upon a draft treaty. 

During all this time the Americans violated 
their instructions by failing to consult Ver- 
gennes. Here Franklin was again overruled 
by Jay and Adams, whose antipathy to 
French and Spanish influence was insupera- 



122 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

ble. It does not appear that Vergennes had 
any definite intention to work against Amer- 
ican boundaries or fishery rights, but there 
can be no doubt that Rayneval and Marbois, 
two of his agents, committed themselves 
openly in a sense unfavorable to American 
claims, and it is likely that, had the nego- 
tiations taken place under his control, the 
outcome would have been delayed in every 
way in order to allow France to keep its 
contract with Spain, whose attacks on 
Gibraltar were pushed all through the sum- 
mer. As it was, the negotiators managed to 
agree on a treaty of peace which reflected the 
Whig principles of Shelburne and the skill and 
pertinacity of the three Americans. Little 
trouble was encountered over boundaries, 
Shelburne ceding everything east of the 
Mississippi and north of Florida, and des- 
ignating as a boundary between the United 
States and Canada in part the same line 
as that in the Proclamation of 1763, from the 
St. Croix River to the eastward of Maine, 
to the Great Lakes and thence westward by a 
system of waterways to the headwaters of 
the Mississippi. At the especial urgence of 
Adams, whose Massachusetts constituents 
drew much of their wealth from the New- 
foundland fisheries, the right of continu- 
ing this pursuit was comprised in the treaty, 
together with the right to land and dry 



AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 123 

fish on unoccupied territories in Labra- 
dor and Nova Scotia. As a possible make- 
weight the navigation of the Mississippi was 
guaranteed to citizens of both the United 
States and Great Britain. 

The [chief difficulty arose over the question 
of the treatment of American loyalists and the 
payment of British debts which had been con- 
fiscated in every colony. Shelburne insisted 
that there must be restoration of civil rights, 
compensation for damages and a pledge 
against any future confiscations or disfran- 
chisements for loyalists, and also demanded 
a provision for the payment of all debts 
due British creditors. Here the negotiation 
hung in a long deadlock, for Franklin, 
Adams and Jay were unanimously deter- 
mined to concede no compensation for in- 
dividuals whom they hated as traitors; 
while the British negotiators felt bound in 
honor not to abandon the men who had lost 
all and suffered every indignity and hu- 
miliation as a penalty for their loyalty. 
At length progress was made when Adams 
suggested that the question of British debts 
be separated from that of Tory compensation; 
so a clause was agreed upon guaranteeing 
the full payment of bona fide debts hereto- 
fore contracted. 

Finally, after Franklin had raised a 
counterclaim for damages due to what he 



124 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

called the "inhuman burnings" of the 
British raids since 1778, it was agreed to 
insert a clause against any future confisca- 
tions or prosecutions of loyalists and to add 
that Congress should "earnestly recommend" 
to the states the restoration of loyalists' 
estates and the repealing of all laws against 
them. At the time the commissioners drew 
up this article they must have known that 
the Congress of the United States had no 
power to enforce the treaty and that any 
such recommendations, however "earnest," 
would carry no weight with the thirteen 
communities controlled by embittered rebels, 
who remembered every Tory, alive or dead, 
with execration. Nevertheless 'it offered a 
way of escape, and the British representa- 
tive signed, November 30, 1782. The great 
contest was at an end. 

When Franklin revealed to Vergennes 
that, unknown to the French court, the 
American commissioners had agreed on 
a draft treaty, the French minister was 
somewhat indignant at the trick and com- 
municated his displeasure to his agent in 
America. This induced the easily worried 
Congress to instruct Livingston, the Secre- 
tary for Foreign Affairs, to write a letter 
censuring the commissioners; but, although 
Jay and Adams were hotly indignant at 
such servility, the matter ended then and 



AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 125 

there. Vergennes's displeasure was mo- 
mentary, and the French policy continued as 
before. The European war was, in fact, 
wearing to its end. Already in April, 1782, 
Admiral Rodney had inflicted a sharp de- 
feat on De Grasse, capturing five of his 
vessels, including the flagship with the ad- 
miral himself. This, together with the ex- 
treme inefficiency of the Spanish fleet, put 
an end to the hope of further French gains 
in the West Indies. Before Gibraltar also 
the allied fleet of forty-eight vessels did 
not dare to risk a general engagement 
with a British relieving fleet of thirty, and 
when in September, 1782, a final bombard- 
ment was attempted the batteries from the 
fort proved too strong for their assailants. 
The allies felt that they had accomplished 
all they could hope to and agreed to terms 
of peace on January 20, 1783. France gained 
little beyond sundry West India Islands, 
but Spain profited to the extent of re- 
gaining Minorca and also Florida. It was 
at best a defeat for England, and the Whig 
ministry, which carried it through, was unable 
to prevent such an outcome. 

The American peace was made the pretext 
for Shelburne's fall, since a coalition of dis- 
satisfied Whigs and Tories united in March, 
1783, to censure it, thereby turning out the 
ministry. But although Fox regained control 



126 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

of diplomatic matters and made some slight 
moves toward reopening negotiations, he 
had no serious intention of disturbing Shel- 
burne's work, and the provisional treaty 
was made definitive on September 3, 1783, — 
the same day on which the French treaty 
was signed. Thus the Americans tech- 
nically kept to the terms of their alliance 
with France in agreeing not to make a 
separate peace, but as a matter of fact hostili- 
ties had entirely ceased in America since 
January, 1783, and practically since the 
fall of the North ministry. The British 
had remained quietly in New York and 
Charleston, withdrawing from all other 
points, and Washington with his small 
army stood at Newburg-on-the-Hudson. 
In October, 1783, the last British with- 
drew, taking with them into exile thousands 
of Tories who did not dare remain to test 
the value of the clauses in the treaty of 
peace which sought to protect them. So 
the last traces of the long contest disappeared, 
and the United States entered upon its 
career. 

But the treaty, as must have been 
foreseen by the commissioners themselves, 
remained a dead letter so far as the Tories 
were concerned. Congress performed its 
part and gave the promised recommenda- 
tion, but the states paid no heed. The loyal- 



AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 127 

ists were not restored to civil or property 
rights. Furthermore the plain provision of 
the treaty, prohibiting further legislation 
against loyalists, was defied in several states, 
and additional disqualifications were placed 
upon those who dared to remain in the 
country. Still further, the provision re- 
garding the payment of debts remained 
unfulfilled, since there was no mechanism 
provided in the treaty through which the 
article could be enforced. Only from the 
British government could the Tories re- 
ceive any recompense for their sufferings, 
and there they were in part relieved. 
Very many received grants of land in 
Canada, where they formed a consider- 
able part of the population in several 
sections. More went to New Brunswick 
and Nova Scotia to receive similar grants. 
Others spent their days in England as un- 
happy pensioners, forgotten victims of a 
war which all Englishmen sought to bury in 
oblivion. Those who remained in the United 
States ultimately regained standing and 
fared better than the exiles, but not until 
new domestic issues had arisen to obliterate 
the memory of revolutionary antagonisms. 

With the Treaty of 1782 the mother coun- 
try and the former colonies definitely started 
on separate paths, recognizing the fundamen- 
tal differences which for fifty years had made 



128 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

harmonious cooperation impossible. Eng- 
land remained as before, aristocratic in social 
structure, oligarchic in government, mili- 
tary and naval in temper, — a land of strongly 
fixed standards of religious and political 
life, a country where society looked to a 
narrow circle for leadership. Its commercial 
and economic ideals, unaltered by defeat, 
persisted to guide national policy in peace 
and war for two more generations. The 
sole result of the war for England was to 
render impossible in future any such per- 
version of cabinet government as that which 
George III, by intimidation, fraud and po- 
litical management, had succeeded for a dec- 
ade in establishing. Never again would 
the country tolerate royal dictation of pol- 
icies and leaders. England became what 
it had been before 1770, a country where 
parliamentary groups and leaders bore the 
responsibility and gained the glory or dis- 
credit, while the outside public approved 
or protested but could not seek in any other 
manner to control the destinies of the state. 
While the English thus sullenly fell back 
into their accustomed habits, the former 
Colonies, now relieved from the old-time 
subordination, were turned adrift to solve 
problems of a wholly different sort. 



FORMATION OF UNITED STATES 12d 
CHAPTER VII 

THE FORMATION OF THE UNITED STATES, 
1781-1793 

The British colonists, who assumed inde- 
pendent legal existence with the adoption 
of Articles of Confederation in 1781, had 
managed to carry through a revolution 
and emerge into the light of peace. They 
were now required to learn, in the hard 
school of experience, those necessary facts 
of government which they had hitherto 
ignored and which, even in the agonies of 
civil war, they had refused to recognize. 
Probably with three quarters of the 
American people the prevailing political 
sentiment was that of aversion to any gov- 
ernmental control, coupled with a deep- 
rooted jealousy and distrust of all officials, 
even those chosen by and dependent upon 
themselves. Their political ideals contem- 
plated the government of each colony 
chiefly by the elected representatives of the 
voters, who should meet annually to legis- 
late and tax, and then, having defined the 
duties of the few permanent officers in such 
a way as to leave them little or no discretion, 
should dissolve, leaving the community 
to run itself until the next annual session. 
Authority of any kind was to them an 



130 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

object of traditional dread, even when exer- 
cised by their own agents. The early state 
constitutions concentrated all power in the 
legislature, leaving the executive and judicial 
officials little to do but execute the laws. The 
only discretionary powers enjoyed by govern- 
ors were in connection with imilitary affairs. 

In establishing the Articles of Confedera- 
tion the statesmen of the Continental Con- 
gress had no intention of creating in any 
sense a governing body. All that the Con- 
gress could do was to decide upon war and 
peace, make treaties, decide upon a common 
military establishment and determine the 
sums to be contributed to the common 
treasury. These matters, moreover, called 
for an affirmative vote of nine states in each 
case. There was no federal executive, nor 
judiciary, nor any provision for enforce- 
ing the votes of the Congress. To carry out 
any single thing committed by the Articles 
to the Congress, and duly voted, required 
the positive cooperation of the state legisla- 
tures, who were under no other compulsion 
than their sense of what the situation called 
for and of what they could afford to do. 

Things were, in short, just where the col- 
onists would have been glad to have them 
before the Revolution, — with the objection- 
able provincial executives removed, all co- 
ercive authority in the central government 



FORMATION OF UNITED STATES 131 

abolished and the legislatures left to their 
own absolute discretion. In other words, 
the average American farmer or trader of the 
day felt that the Kevolution had been 
fought to get rid of all government but one 
directly under the control of the individual 
voters of the states. Typical of such were 
men like Samuel Adams of Massachusetts 
and Patrick Henry of Virginia. They had 
learned their politics in the period before 
the Revolution and clung to the old colonial 
spirit, which regarded normal politics as 
essentially defensive and anti-governmental. 
On the other hand there were a good many 
individuals in the! country who: recognized 
that the triumph of the colonial ideal was 
responsible for undeniable disasters. Such 
men were found especially among the army 
officers and among those who had tried to 
aid the cause in diplomatic or civil office 
during the Revolution. Experience made 
them realize that the practical abolition of all 
executive authority and the absence of any 
real central government had been responsible 
for chronic inefficiency. The financial col- 
lapse, the lack of any power on the part of 
Congress to enforce its laws or resolutions, 
the visible danger that state legislatures 
might consult their own convenience in 
supporting the common enterprises or ob- 
ligations, — all these shortcomings led men 



132 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

such as Washington, Hamilton, Madison, 
Webster, a pamphleteer of New England, to 
urge even before 1781 that a genuine govern- 
ment should be set up to replace the mere 
league. Their supporters were, however, 
few, and confined mainly to those mer- 
chants or capitalists who realized the neces- 
sity of general laws and a general authority. 
It is scarcely conceivable that the inherited 
prejudices of most Americans in favor of 
local independence could have been over- 
borne had not the Revolution been followed 
by a series of public distresses, which drove 
to the side of the strong-government ad- 
vocates, — temporarily as it proved, — a great 
number of American voters. 

When hostilities ended the people of the 
United States entered upon a period of eco- 
nomic confusion. In the first place, trade was 
disorganized, since the old West India 
markets were lost and the privileges for- 
merly enjoyed under the Navigation Acts 
were terminated by the separation of the 
countries. American shippers could not 
at once discover in French or other ports an 
equivalent for the former triangular trade. 
In the second place English manufacturers 
and exporters rushed to recover their Amer- 
ican market and promptly put out of 
competition the American industries which 
had begun to develop during the war. 



FORMATION OF UNITED STATES 133 

Specie, plentiful for a few months, now flowed 
rapidly out of the country, since American 
merchants were no longer able to buy 
British goods by drawing on West India 
credits. At the same time, with the arrival 
of peace, the state courts resumed their 
functions, and general liquidation began; 
while the state legislatures, in the effort 
to adjust war finances, imposed what were 
felt to be high taxes. The result was a general 
complaint of hard times, of poverty and of 
insuflScient money. Some states made efforts 
to retaliate against Great Britain by tariffs 
and navigation laws, but this only damaged 
their own ports by driving British trade 
to their neighbors'. Congress could afford 
no help, since it had no power of commercial 
regulation. 

The effect upon the working of the Con- 
federation showed that a majority of Amer- 
icans had learned nothing from all their ex- 
periences, for the state legislatures de- 
clined to furnish to the central government 
any more money than they felt to be 
convenient, regardless of the fact that with- 
out their regular support the United States 
was certain to become bankrupt. Robert 
Morris was appointed Financier in 1781, and 
took energetic steps to introduce order 
into the mass of loan certificates, foreign 
loans, certificates of indebtedness and moun- 



134 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

tains of paper currency; but the one unes- 
capable fact stood in his way, that the states 
felt under no obligation to pay their quotas 
of expenses. In spite of his urgent appeals, 
backed by resolutions of Congress, the 
government revenues remained too scanty 
to pay even the interest on the debt. Morris 
resigned in disgust in 1784, and his successors, 
a committee of Congress, found themselves 
able to do nothing more than confess bank- 
ruptcy. The people of the states felt too 
poor to support their federal government 
and, what was more, felt no responsibility 
for its fate. 

Without revenue it naturally followed that 
the Congress of the Confederation accom- 
plished practically nothing. As will be 
shown later, it could secure no treaties of any 
importance, since; its impotence to enforce 
them was patent. It managed to disband 
the remaining troops with great difficulty 
and only under the danger of mutiny, a 
danger so great that it took all of Wash- 
ington's personal influence to prevent an 
uprising at Newburg in March, 1783. For 
the rest, its leaders, men often of high ability, 
— Hamilton, Madison, King of Massachu- 
setts, Sherman of Connecticut, — found them- 
selves helpless. Naturally they appealed 
to the states for additional powers and 
submitted no less than three amendments: 



FORMATION OF UNITED STATES 135 

first, in 1781, a proposal to permit Congress 
to levy and collect a ^ve per cent duty on im- 
ports; then, in 1783, a plan by which certain 
specific duties were to be collected by state 
officers and turned over to the government; 
and finally, in 1784, a request that Congress 
be given power to exclude vessels of nations 
which would not make commercial treaties. 
No one of these succeeded, although the first 
plan failed of unanimous acceptance by one 
state only. The legislatures recognized the 
need but dreaded to give any outside power 
whatever authority within their respec- 
tive boundaries. While those who advocated 
these amendments kept reiterating the posi- 
tive necessity for some means to avert 
national disgrace and bankruptcy, their 
opponents, reverting to the language of 
1775, declared it incompatible with "liberty" 
that any authority other than the state's 
should be exercised in a state's territory. 
By 1787 it was clear that any hope of specific 
amendments was vain. Unanimity from 
thirteen legislatures was not to be looked for. 
On the other hand, where the states chose 
to act they produced important results. 
The cessions of western lands, which had 
been exacted by Maryland as her price 
for ratifying the Articles, were carried out 
by New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, 
and Virginia until the title to all territory 



136 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

west of Pennsylvania and north of the 
Ohio was with the Confederation. Then, al- 
though nothing in the Articles authorized 
such action. Congress, in 1787, adopted an 
Ordinance establishing a plan for settling 
the new lands. After a period of provin- 
cial government, substantially identical with 
that of the colonies, the region was to be 
divided into states and admitted into the 
union, under the terms of an annexed "com- 
pact" which prohibited slavery and guar- 
anteed civil rights. But where the states 
did not cooperate, confusion reigned. Legis- 
latures laid such tariffs as they saw fit, which 
led to actual interstate commercial dis- 
criminations between New York and its 
neighbors. Connecticut and Pennsylvania 
wrangled over land claims. The inhabitants 
of the territory west of New Hampshire 
set up a state government under the name 
of Vermont and successfully maintained 
themselves against the state of New York, 
which had a legal title to the soil, while the 
frontier settlers in North Carolina were 
prevented only by inferior numbers from 
carrying through a similar secession. 

Finally, in the years 1785-7, the number of 
those who found the unrestrained self-gov- 
ernment of the separate states another 
name for anarchy was enormously increased 
by a sudden craze for paper money, tender 



FORMATION OF UNITED STATES 137 

laws and stay laws which swept the country. 
The poorer classes, especially the farmers, de- 
nounced the courts as agents of the rich, 
clamored for more money to permit the 
easy payment of obligations, and succeeded 
in compelling more than half of the states 
to pass laws hindering the collection of debts 
and emitting bills of credit, which promptly 
depreciated. Worse remained. In New 
Hampshire armed bands tried to intimidate 
the legislature, and in Massachusetts the 
rejection of such laws brought on actual 
insurrection. Farmers assembled under arms, 
courts were broken up, and a sharp little 
civil war, known as Shays' Rebellion, was 
necessary before the state government could 
reestablish order. 

Under the circumstances, a sudden strong 
reaction against mob rule and untrammelled 
democracy ran through the country, swing- 
ing all men of property and law-abiding 
habits powerfully in favor of the demand for 
a new, genuinely authoritative national gov- 
ernment, able to compel peace and good 
order. So the leaders of the reform party 
struck, and at a meeting at Annapolis in 
October, 1786, summoned originally to dis- 
cuss the problem of navigating the Poto- 
mac River, they issued a call for a convention 
of delegates from all the states to meet at 
Philadelphia in May, 1787, for the purpose 



138 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

of recommending provisions "intended to 
render the federal government adequate 
to the exigencies of the Union. " This move- 
ment, reversing the current of American his- 
tory, gained impetus in the winter of 1787. 
Congress seconded the call, and, after Vir- 
ginia had shown the way by nominating its 
foremost men as delegates, the other states 
fell into line and sent representatives, — 
all but Rhode Island, which was the scene 
of an orgy of paper-money tyranny, and 
would take no part in any such meeting. 
Of the fifty-five men present at the Phila- 
delphia convention, not more than half a 
dozen were of the old colonial type, which 
clung to individual state independence as 
the palladium of liberty. All the others 
felt that the time had come to lay the most 
thoroughgoing limitations upon the states, 
with the express purpose of preventing any 
future repetition of the existing interstate 
wrangles, and especially of the financial 
abuses of the time; and they were ready to 
gain this end by entrusting large powers to the 
central government. They divided sharply, 
however, on one important point, namely, 
whether the increased powers were to be exer- 
cised by a government similar to the exist- 
ing one or by something wholly new and far 
more centralized, and over this question the 
convention ran grave danger of breaking up. 



FORMATION OF UNITED STATES 139 

Discussion began in June, 1787, behind 
carefully closed doors, with a draft plan 
agreed upon by the Virginia members as 
the working project. This was a bold scheme, 
calling for the creation of a single great 
state, relying on the people for its authority, 
superior to the existing states, and able, if 
necessary, to coerce them; in reality a 
fusion of the United States into a single 
commonwealth. In opposition to this the 
representatives of the smaller states, — Del- 
aware, New Jersey, Maryland and Connec- 
ticut, — aided by the conservative members 
from New York, announced that they 
would never consent to any plan which did 
not safeguard the individuality and equal- 
ity of their states, and, although the Virginia 
plan commanded a majority of those present, 
its supporters were obliged to permit a com- 
promise in order to prevent an angry dis- 
solution of the convention. In keeping with 
a suggestion of the Connecticut members, 
it was agreed that one house of the proposed 
legislature should contain an equal represen- 
tation of the states while the other should be 
based on population. 

The adoption of this compromise put an 
end to the danger of disruption, for all but 
a few irreconcilables were now ready to co- 
operate, and in the course of a laborious 
session a final draft was hammered out, with 



140 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

patchings, changes, and additional com- 
promises to safeguard the interests of the 
plantation states in the institution of slavery. 
When the convention adjourned, it placed 
before the people of America a document 
which was a novelty in the field of govern- 
ment. In part it aimed to establish a 
great state, on the model of the American 
states, which in turn derived their features 
from the colonial governments. It had 
a Congress of two houses, an executive 
with independent powers, and a judiciary 
authorized to enforce the laws of the United 
States. Congress was given full and ex- 
clusive power over commerce, currency, 
war and peace and a long list of enumerated 
activities involving interstate questions, and 
was authorized to pass all laws necessary 
and proper to the carrying out of any of 
the powers named in the constitution. Fur- 
ther, the constitution, the federal laws and 
treaties were declared to be the supreme 
law of the land, anything in a state law or 
constitution notwithstanding. In addition, 
the states were expressly forbidden to 
enter the fields reserved to the federal gov- 
ernment and were prohibited from infringing 
the rights of property. On the other hand, 
the new government could not exist without 
the cooperation of the states in providing for 
the election of electors, — to choose a presi- 



PORMATION OF UNITED STATES 141 

dent, — of senators and of congressmen. It 
was a new creation, a federal state. 

There now followed a sharp and decisive 
contest to gain the necessary ratification 
by nine commonwealths. At first the advo- 
cates of strong government, by a rapid cam- 
paign, secured the favorable votes of half a 
dozen states in quick succession, but when 
it came the turn of New York, Massachusetts 
and Virginia, the conservative, localistic 
instincts of the farmers and older people 
were roused to make a strenuous resistance. 
The " Federalists," as the advocates of the 
new government termed themselves, had 
to meet charges that the proposed scheme 
would crush the liberties of the states, re- 
duce them to ciphers, and set up an imita- 
tion of the British monarchy. But by the 
eager urging of the foremost lawyers and 
most influential men of the day the tide was 
turned and ratification carried, although 
with the utmost difl&culty and usually with 
the recommendation of amendments to 
perfect the constitution. In June, 1788, the 
contest ended, and although Rhode Island 
and North Carolina remained unreconciled 
the other eleven states proceeded to set up 
the new government. 

In the winter of 1789, in accordance with 
a vote of the Congress of the Confederation, 
the states chose electors and senators and 



142 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS jj 

the people voted for representatives. But 
one possible candidate existed for the presi- 
dency, namely, the hero of the Revolu- 
tionary War, and hence Washington re- 
ceived the unanimous vote of the whole 
electoral college. With him John Adams 
was chosen vice-president, by a much smaller 
majority. The Congress, which slowly as- 
sembled, was finally able to count and 
declare the votes, the two oflBcers were in- 
augurated and the new government was 
ready to assume its functions. 

There followed a period of rapid and 
fundamental legislation. In the new Con- 
gress were a body of able men, by far the 
greater number of them zealous to establish 
a strong authoritative government, and to 
complete the victory of the Federalists. 
The defeated States' Rights men now stood 
aside, watching their conquerors carry their 
plan to its conclusion. Accordingly, led 
for the most part by James Madison of 
the House, Congress passed acts creating 
executive departments with federal oflficials; 
establishing a full independent federal judici- 
ary, resident in every state, with a supreme 
court above all; imposing a tariff for revenue 
and for protection to American industries, 
and appropriating money to settle the debts 
of the late confederation. In addition it 
framed and submitted to the states a series 



FORMATION OF UNITED STATES 143 

of constitutional amendments whose object 
was to meet Anti-federalist criticisms by 
securing the individual against oppression 
from the federal government. When Con- 
gress adjourned in September, 1789, after 
its first session, it had completed a thorough- 
going political revolution. In place of a 
loose league of entirely independent states, 
there now existed a genuine national gov- 
ernment, able to enforce its will upon indi- 
viduals and to perform all the functions of 
any state. 

That the American people, with their 
political inheritance, should have consented 
even by a small majority to abandon their 
traditional lax government, remains one 
of the most remarkable political decisions 
in history. It depended upon the concur- 
rence ofj circumstances which, for the mo- 
ment, forced all persons of property and law- 
abiding instincts to join together in all the 
states to remedy an intolerable situation. 
The leaders, as might be expected, were a 
different race of statesmen, on the whole, 
from those who had directed events prior 
to 1776. Washington and Franklin favored 
the change, but Richard Henry Lee and Pat- 
rick Henry were eager opponents, Samuel 
Adams was unfriendly, and Thomas Jeffer- 
son, in Paris, was unenthusiastic. The 
main work was done by Hamilton, Madison, 



144 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

John Marshall, Gouverneur Morris, Fisher 
Ames, — men who were children in the days 
of the Stamp Act. The old agitators and 
revolutionists were superseded by a new 
type of politicians, whose interests lay in 
government, not opposition. 

But the fundamental American instincts 
were not in reality changed; they had only 
ebbed for the moment. No sooner did 
Congress meet in its second session in 
January, 1790, and undertake the task of 
reorganizing the chaotic finances of the 
country, than political unanimity vanished 
and new sectional and class antagonisms 
came rapidly to the front in which could be 
traced the return of the old-time colonial 
habits. The central figure was no longer 
Madison, but Hamilton, Secretary of the 
Treasury, who aspired to be a second William 
Pitt, and submitted an elaborate scheme for 
refunding the entire American debt. In 
addition he called for an excise tax, and 
later recommended the chartering of a 
National Bank to serve the same function 
in America that the Bank of England per- 
formed in Great Britain. 

Daring, far-sighted, based on the methods 
of English financiers, Hamilton's plans 
bristled with points certain to arouse an- 
tagonism. He proposed to refund and pay 
the debt at its face value to actual holders, 



FORMATION OF UNITED STATES 145 

regardless of the fact that the nearly 
worthless federal stock and certificates of in- 
debtedness had fallen into the hands of spec- 
ulators; he recommended that the United 
States assume, fund and pay the war debt 
of the states, disregarding the fact that, 
while some states were heavily burdened, 
others had discharged their obligations. 
He urged an excise tax on liquors, although 
such an internal tax was an innovation in 
America and was certain to stir intense op- 
position; he suggested the chartering of a 
powerful bank, in spite of the absence of 
any clause in the constitution authorizing 
such action. Hamilton was, in fact, a great 
admirer of the English constitution and 
political system, and he definitely intended 
to strengthen the new government by mak- 
ing it the supreme financial power and en- 
listing in its support all the moneyed in- 
terests of the country. Property, as in 
England, must be the basis of government. 
Against his schemes there immediately 
developed a rising opposition which made 
itself felt in Congress, in state legislatures, 
in the newspapers and finally in Washington's 
own cabinet. All the farmer and debtor 
elements in the country disliked and dreaded 
the financial manipulations of the brilliant 
secretary, and the Virginian planters, uni- 
versally borrowers, who had been the strong- 



146 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

est single power in establishing the new con- 
stitution, now swung into opposition to the 
administration. Madison led the fight in 
the House against [Hamilton's measures, and 
Jefferson, in the cabinet, laid down, in a 
memorandum of protest against the proposed 
bank, the doctrine of "strict construction" 
of the constitution according to which the 
powers granted to the federal government 
ought to be narrowly construed in order to 
preserve the state governments, the source 
of liberty, from encroachment. He de- 
nounced the bank, accordingly, as unwar- 
ranted by the constitution, corrupt and 
dangerous to the safety of the country. In 
the congressional contest Hamilton was 
successful, for all his recommendations were 
adopted, but at the cost of creating a lasting 
antagonism in the southern states and in 
the western regions. 

In the year 1791 Jefferson and Madison 
cooperated to establish a newspaper at 
Philadelphia whose sole occupation consisted 
in denouncing the corrupt and monarchical 
Secretary of the Treasury. Hamilton re- 
torted by publishing letters charging Jefferson 
with responsibility for it, and Washing- 
ton, who steadily approved Hamilton's pol- 
icies, found his cabinet splitting into two 
factions. By the year 1792, when the second 
presidential election took place, the opposi- 



FORMATION OF UNITED STATES 147 

tion, styling itself "Republican," was suffi- 
ciently well organized to run George Clin- 
ton, formerly the Anti-federalist leader of 
New York, for Vice-President against the 
"monarchical" Adams. Washington was 
not opposed, but no other one of the Hamil- 
tonian supporters escaped attack. There 
was, in short, the beginning of the definite 
formation of political parties on lines akin 
to those which existed in the period before 
1787. Behind Jefferson and Madison were 
rallying all the colonial-minded voters, to 
whom government was at best an evil and 
to whom, under any circumstances, strong 
authority and elaborate finance were utterly 
abhorrent. Around Hamilton gathered the 
men whose interests lay in building up a gen- 
uine, powerful, national government, — the 
merchants, shipowners, moneyed men and 
creditors generally in the northern states, 
and, of course, all Tories. 

Up to 1793 the Federalist administration 
successfully maintained its ground, and, when 
the Virginian group tried in the House to prove 
laxity and mismanagement against Hamil- 
ton, he was triumphantly vindicated. Had 
the United States been allowed to develop in 
tranquillity and prosperity for a generation 
it is not unlikely that the Federalist party 
might have struck its roots so deeply as to 
be impervious to attacks. But it needed 



148 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

time, for in contrast to the Jeffersonian 
party, whose origin is manifestly in the old- 
time colonial political habits of democracy, 
local independence and love of lax finance, 
the Federalist party was a new creation, 
with no traditions to fall back upon. Re- 
flecting in some respects English views, 
notably in its distrust of the masses and its 
respect for property and wealth, it far sur- 
passed any English party of the period, ex- 
cept the small group led by William Pitt, 
in its demand for progressive and vigorous 
legislation. In 1793, when matters were in 
this situation, the state of European and 
English politics suddenly brought the United 
States into the current of world politics and 
subjected the' new administration to diffi- 
culties which were ultimately to cause its 
downfall. 

CHAPTER VIII 

THE FIRST PERIOD OF COMMERCIAL ANTAGO- 
NISM, 1783-1795 

While the United States had been under- 
going the important changes of the period, 
1783-1793, England had passed through an 
almost equally significant political trans- 
formation, in the course of which the two 
countries entered upon a long history of 
difficult and unfriendly diplomatic relations. 



COMMERCIAL ANTAGONISM 149 

The treaty of peace ended the political 
union of the two communities, but it left 
the nature of their commercial relations to 
be settled, and this, for the United States, 
was a problem second only in importance 
to that of federal government. If the pros- 
perity of the thirteen states was to be re- 
stored the old-time trade routes of the co- 
lonial days must be reestablished. The 
West India market for fish, grain and lum- 
ber, the English or European market for 
plantation products must be replaced on a 
profitable basis and the United States must 
be prepared to purchase these privileges 
by whatever concessions lay in its power 
to grant. It rested chiefly with England 
to decide whether to permit the former 
colonies to resume their earlier commercial 
system or begin a new policy, for it was 
with England and the English colonies that 
seven eighths of American commerce natu- 
rally was carried on. 

Unfortunately for the people of the United 
States, and unfortunately for the harmony 
of the two countries, the prevailing beliefs 
of English merchants, shipowners, naval 
authorities and, in general, the official classes 
were such as to render a complete resump- 
tion of the former trade relations almost 
impossible. According to the political and 
economic doctrines underlying the Acts of 



150 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

Trade, the moment that the two countries 
became separated their interests automati- 
cally became antagonistic. American ship- 
ping, formerly fostered when under the flag, 
now assumed the aspect of a formidable 
rival to the British merchant marine and, 
as such, ought to be prevented from taking 
any profit which by any device could be 
turned toward English ships. 

The treaty of peace had scarcely been 
signed when there appeared a pamphlet 
by Lord Sheffield, early in 1783, which 
won instant success, passing through several 
editions. This announced that henceforward 
it was the duty of the British government to 
discourage and crush American navigation 
to the extent of its power in order to check 
a dangerous rival, taking especial care to 
reserve the West Indies for exclusive British 
control. At the possibility of losing the 
profitable American market through re- 
taliatory measures, Sheffield laughed in 
scorn. "We might as reasonably dread the 
effect of combinations among the German 
as among the American States, " he sneered, 
"and deprecate the resolves of the Diet 
as those of Congress. " There were elements, 
of course, to whom these arguments of Shef- 
field were unwelcome, particularly the West 
India planters themselves, and to a degree 
the British manufacturers, who would gladly 



COMMERCIAL ANTAGONISM 151 

have resumed the trade of the years before 
1776; but so far as the great majority of 
Englishmen was concerned it seems impos- 
sible to doubt that Lord Sheffield was a true 
spokesman of their deepest convictions. 

In addition to the economic theories of 
the time, the temper of the English people 
was sullen, hostile and contemptuous to- 
ward the former colonies. The bulk of the 
nation had come to condemn the policies of 
the North ministry, which had led to the 
loss of the plantations, but they did not 
love the Americans any the more for that. 
The sharp social distinctions, which prior 
to 1776 had rendered the nobility, the gentry, 
the clergy and the professions contemptuous 
toward the colonists, still reigned unchecked; 
and the Tories and most of the ruling classes, 
regarding the Americans as a set of ungrate- 
ful and spiteful people, whom it was well 
to have lost as subjects, ceased to take 
any interest in their existence. The United 
States was dropped, as an unpleasant sub- 
ject is banished from conversation, and the 
relations of the two countries became a 
matter of national concern only when the 
interests of shipowners, merchants or naval 
authorities were sufficiently strong to com- 
pel attention from the governing classes. 

The Whig leaders should of course be ex- 
cepted from this general statement, for they 



152 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

and their followers, — both their parliamen- 
tary coterie and their middle-class adherents 
outside, — retained a friendly attitude and 
tried to treat the United States with a con- 
sideration which usually had no place in 
Tory manners. But Whigs as well as Tories 
held the prevailing conceptions of naval 
and economic necessities, and only scattered 
individuals, such as William Pitt, were 
affected by the new doctrines of Adam 
Smith. Their commercial policy tended to 
differ only in degree from that of the more 
rigid Tories.. 

To make it certain that the United States 
should fail to secure favorable commercial 
rights, the ascendancy of the Whigs came to 
a sudden end within a year from its begin- 
ning. The Shelburne ministry, which made 
the peace, had to meet the opposition not 
only of the Tories but of the group led by 
Fox. In the session of 1783 the Whig party 
was thus openly split, and presently all 
England was scandalized to see Fox enter 
into a coalition with no less a person than 
Lord North for the purpose of obtaining office. 
Shelburne resigned on February 24, after 
the passage of a resolution of censure on the 
Peace, and George III, after trying every 
expedient to avoid what he considered a 
personal disgrace, was forced, on April 2, 
to admit Fox and North as ministers under 



COMMERCIAL ANTAGONISM 153 

the nominal headship of the Duke of Port- 
land. So Tories were restored to a share 
in the government, since nearly half of 
the coalition's majority depended upon 
Tory votes. In December, 1783, the King, 
by a direct exercise of his influence, caused 
the Lords to throw out a ministerial bill 
for the government of India and, dismissing 
the coalition ministers, he appealed to 
William Pitt. That youthful politician, who 
had first entered office as Chancellor of the 
Exchequer under Shelburne, succeeded, after 
a sharp parliamentary contest, in breaking 
down the opposition majority in the House, 
and in a general election in March, 1784, 
won a great victory. Then, at the head of a 
mixed cabinet, supported by Tories and 
King's Friends as well as by his own fol- 
lowers from among the Whigs, Pitt main- 
tained himself, secure in the support of 
George III, but in no sense his agent or 
tool. In the next few years he made his hold 
secure by his skill in parliamentary leadership 
and his success in carrying financial and ad- 
ministrative reforms. This was the first 
peace ministry since that of Pelham, 1746- 
1754, which won prestige through efficient 
government. It was, however, mainly Tory 
in temper, and as such distinctly cold and 
unfriendly toward America. Pitt himself 
was undoubtedly in favor of liberal commer- 



154 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

cial relations but in that respect, as in the 
question of parHamentary reform, he followed 
the opinions of his supporters and of the 
nation. 

The British policy toward the United 
States, under the circumstances, was dic- 
tated by a strict adherence to the principles 
set forth by Lord Sheffield. Pitt, while 
Chancellor of the Exchequer under Shel- 
burne, introduced a very liberal bill, which, 
if enacted, would have secured full commer- 
cial reciprocity, including the West India 
trade. This failed to pass, however, and 
was abandoned when Pitt left office in April, 
1783. The Fox-North ministry followed a 
different plan by causing Parliament to pass 
a bill authorizing the Crown to regulate 
the trade with the West Indies. They then, 
by proclamation, allowed the islands to 
import certain articles from the United 
States, not including fish or lumber, and 
only in British bottoms. It was hoped that 
Canada would take the place of the United 
States in supplying the West India colonies, 
and that British vessels would monopolize 
the carrying. In 1787 this action was 
ratified by Parliament and the process of 
discouraging American shipping was adopted 
as a national policy. American vessels 
henceforward came under the terms of the 
Navigation Acts and could take part only 



COMMERCIAL ANTAGONISM 155 

in the direct trade between their own country 
and England. When John Adams, in 1785, 
arrived at London as minister and tried to 
open the subject of a commercial treaty 
he was unable to secure the slightest atten- 
tion to the American requests and felt him- 
self to be in an atmosphere of hostility 
and social contempt. The British policy 
proved in a few years fairly successful. It 
reduced American shipping trading with 
England, it drove American vessels from the 
British West Indies, and, owing to the impos- 
sibility of the states retaliating separately, 
it did not diminish the British market in 
America. Up to 1789, when the first Con- 
gress of the United States passed a navi- 
gation act and adopted discriminating duties, 
America remained commercially helpless. 
The profit went to British shipowners and 
merchants. 

The American government naturally 
turned to the other powers having American 
possessions, France and Spain, hoping to 
secure from them compensating advantages. 
So far as France was concerned, the govern- 
ment of Louis XVI was friendly, but its 
finances were in such confusion and its 
administration so unsteady after 1783 that 
Jefferson, minister to France, could secure 
no important concessions save one. In 
1784, as though to step into the place left 



156 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

vacant by the English, the French crown, 
by royal order, permitted direct trade between 
the United States and the French West 
Indies in vessels of less than sixty tons 
burden. The result was striking. In a few 
years the American molasses trade, driven 
from the English islands, took refuge at 
San Domingo, building up a tremendous 
sugar export and more than filling the 
place of the British trade. In 1790 the 
commerce of San Domingo surpassed that 
of all the British islands together. Here 
again French friendship shone in contrast 
to English antagonism. Every American 
shipowner felt the difference, and remem- 
bered it. 

With Spain the United States was less 
successful. Jay, Secretary for Foreign Affairs, 
undertook negotiations through Diego Gardo- 
qui, a Spaniard who, during the Revolution, 
had furnished many cargoes of supplies. He 
found that country sharply dissatisfied over 
the boundary assigned to the United States. 
The British, in ceding Florida to Spain, had 
not turned over all of their province of 1763, 
but had handed that part of it north of thirty- 
two degrees to the United States, and further 
had granted the latter the free navigation 
of the Mississippi, through Spanish territory. 
Gardoqui offered in substance to make 
a commercial treaty provided the United 



COMMERCIAL ANTAGONISM 157 

States would surrender the claim to navigate 
the Mississippi for twenty years. Jay, to 
whose mind the interests of the seaboard 
shipowners and producers far outweighed 
the desires of the few settlers of the interior 
waters, was willing to make the agreement. 
But an angry protest went up from the 
southern states, whose land claims stretched 
to the Mississippi, and he could secure, 
in 1787, a vote of only seven states to five in 
Congress. Since all treaties required the 
consent of nine states, this vote killed the ne- 
gotiations. Spain remained unfriendly and 
continued to intrigue with the Indian tribes 
in the southwestern United States with a 
view to retaining their support. 

Further north the United States found 
itself mortified and helpless before English 
antagonism. After 1783 the country had 
Canada on its northern border as a small 
but actively hostile neighbor, for there 
thousands of proscribed and ruined Tories 
had taken refuge. The governors of Canada, 
Carlton and Simcoe, as well as the men com- 
manding the frontier posts, had served 
against the Americans and regarded them 
as rivals. To secure the western fur trade 
and to retain a hold over the western Indians 
was recognized as the correct and necessary 
policy for Canada, and the British govern- 
ment, in response to Canadian sugges- 



158 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

tions, decided to retain their military posts 
along the Great Lakes within the boundaries 
of the United States. To justify them in so 
doing they pointed with unanswerable truth 
to the fact that the United States had not 
carried out the provisions of the Treaty of 
1783 regarding British debts, and that 
Tories, contrary to the letter and spirit of 
that treaty, were still proscribed by law. 
The state courts felt in no way bound to 
enforce the treaty, nor did state legislatures 
choose to carry it out. British debts re- 
mained uncollectible, and the British there- 
fore retained their western posts and through 
them plied a lucrative trade with the Indians 
to the south of the Great Lakes. 

In the years after the war a steady flow 
of settlers entered the Ohio valley, resum- 
ing the movement begun before the Revo- 
lution, and took up land in Kentucky and 
the Northwest territory. By 1792 Kentucky 
was ready to be admitted as a state, and Ten- 
nessee and Ohio were organized as terri- 
tories. Now these settlers naturally found 
the Indians opposing theircadvance, and the 
years 1783-1794 are a chronicle of smoulder- 
ing border warfare, broken by intermittent 
truces. During all this time it was the firm 
belief of the frontiersmen that the Indian 
hostility was stimulated by the British posts, 
and hatred of England and the English grew 



COMMERCIAL ANTAGONISM 159 

into an article of faith on their part. Ul- 
timately the new government under Wash- 
ington undertook a decisive campaign. At 
first, in 1791, General St. Clair, invading 
Ohio with raw troops, was fearfully defeated, 
with butchery and mutilation of more than 
two-thirds of his force; but in 1794 General 
Wayne, with a more carefully drilled body, 
compelled the Indians to retreat. Yet 
with the British posts still there, a full 
control was impossible. 

The new constitution, which gave the 
United States ample powers of enforcing 
treaties and making commercial discrimi- 
nations, did not at once produce any alter- 
ation in the existing unsatisfactory sit- 
uation. Spain remained steadily indiffer- 
ent and unfriendly. France, undergoing 
the earlier stages of her own revolution, was 
incapable of carrying out any consistent 
action. The Pitt ministry, absorbed in the 
game of European politics and in internal 
legislation, sent a minister, Hammond, but 
was content to let its commercial and frontier 
policies continue. But when in 1792 the 
French Revolution took a graver character, 
with the overthrow of the monarchy, and 
when in 1793 England joined the Euro- 
pean powers in the war against France, while 
all Europe watched with horror and panic 
the progress of the Reign of Terror in the 



160 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

French Republic, the situation of the United 
States was suddenly changed. 

In the spring of 1793 there came to the 
United States the news of the war between 
England and France, and following it, by a 
few days only, an emissary from the French 
Republic, One and Indivisible, "Citizen 
Edmond Genet," arrived at Charleston, 
South Carolina, April 15. There now ex- 
ploded a sudden overwhelming outburst 
of sympathy and enthusiasm for the French 
nation and the French cause. AH the re- 
membered help of the days of Yorktown, 
all the tradition of British oppression and 
ravages, all the recent irritation at the 
British trade discrimination and Indian 
policy, coupled with appreciation of French 
concessions, swept crowds in every state 
and every town into a tempest of welcome 
to Genet. Shipowners rushed to apply for 
privateers' commissions, crowds adopted 
French democratic jargon and manners. 
Democratic clubs were formed on the model 
of the Jacobin society, and "Civic Feasts," 
at which Genet was present, made the coun- 
try resound. It looked as though the 
United States was certain to enter the 
European war as an ally of France out of 
sheer gratitude, democratic sympathy and 
hatred for England. The French minister, 
feeling the people behind him, hastened to 



COMMERCIAL ANTAGONISM 161 

send out privateers and acted as though the 
United States were already in open alliance. 

It now fell to the Washington administra- 
tion to decide a momentous question. Re- 
gardless of the past, regardless of the British 
policy since the peace, was it worth while 
to allow the country to become involved 
in war at this juncture? Decidedly not. 
Before Genet had presented his credentials, 
Washington and Jefferson had framed and 
issued a declaration of neutrality forbidding 
American citizens to violate the law of 
nations by giving aid to either side. But 
it was not merely caution which led to 
this step. The Federalist leaders and most 
of their followers, — men of property, stand- 
ing and law-abiding habits, — were distinctly 
shocked at the horrors of the Reign of Terror, 
and felt with Burke, their old friend and 
defender in Revolutionary days, that such 
liberty as the French demanded was some- 
thing altogether alien to that known in the 
United States or in England. And as the 
news became more and more ghastly, the 
Federalists grew rapidly to regard Eng- 
land, with all its unfriendliness, with all its 
commercial selfishness, as the saving power 
of civilization, and France as the chief 
enemy on earth of God and man. The 
result was to precipitate the United States 
into a new contest, a struggle on the part of 



162 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

the Federalist administration, led by Ham- 
ilton and Washington, to hold back the 
country from being hurled into alliance with 
France or into war with England. In this 
they had to meet the attack of the already 
organizing Republican party, and of many 
new adherents, who flocked to it during 
the years of excitement. 

The first contest was a short one. Genet, 
his head turned by his reception, resented 
the strict neutrality enforced by the ad- 
ministration, tried to compel it to recede, 
endeavored to secure the exit of privateers- 
men in spite of their prohibition, and ulti- 
mately in fury appealed to the people 
against their government. This conduct 
lost him the support of even the most 
sanguine democrats, and, when the adminis- 
tration asked for his recall, he fell from 
his prominence unregretted. But his suc- 
cessor, Fauchet, a less extreme man, was 
warmly welcomed by the opposition leaders, 
including Madison and Randolph, Jeffer- 
son's successor as Secretary of State, and was 
admitted into the inmost councils of the 
party. 

Hardly was Genet disposed of when a more 
dangerous crisis arose, caused by the naval 
policy of England. When war broke out, 
the British cruisers, as was their custom, 
fell upon French commerce, and especially 



COMMERCIAL ANTAGONISM 163 

upon such neutral commerce as could, under 
the then announced principles of interna- 
tional law, be held liable to capture. Conse- 
quently American vessels, plying their lucra- 
tive trade with the French West Indies, 
were seized and condemned by British West 
India prize courts. It was a British dogma, 
known as the Rule of 1756, that if trade by a 
neutral with enemies' colonies had been pro- 
hibited in peace, it became contraband in 
time of war, otherwise belligerents, by sim- 
ply opening their ports, could employ neu- 
trals to do their trading for them. Now 
in this case the trade between the French 
West Indies and America had not been pro- 
hibited in peace, but the seizures were made 
none the less, causing a roar of indignation 
from the entire American seacoast. Late 
in 1793 the British ministry added fresh 
fuel to the fire by declaring provisions 
taken to French territory to be contra- 
band of war. If an intention to force the 
United States into alliance with France had 
been guiding the Pitt ministry, no better 
steps could have been devised to accomplish 
the end. As a matter of fact the Pitt min- 
istry thought very little about it in the 
press of the tremendous European cataclysm. 
When Congress met in December, 1793, 
the old questions of Hamilton's measures 
and the "monarchism" of the administration 



164 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

were forgotten in the new crisis. Appar- 
ently a large majority in the House, led by 
Madison, were ready to sequester British 
debts, declare an embargo, build a navy, and 
in general prepare for a bitter contest; but 
by great exertions the administration 
managed to stave off these drastic steps 
through promising to send a special diplo- 
matic mission to prevent war. During the 
summer the excitement grew, for it was in 
this year that Wayne's campaign against 
the western Indians took place, which was 
generally believed to be rendered necessary 
by the British retention of the posts; and 
also in this same summer the inhabitants 
of western Pennsylvania broke into insur- 
rection against the hated excise tax. This 
lawlessness was laid by the Federalists, 
including Washington himself, to the de- 
moralizing influence of the French Revo- 
lution, and was therefore suppressed by no 
less than 15,000 militia, an action denounced 
by the Republicans, — as Randolph con- 
fided to the French minister, — as an example 
of despotic brutality. Men were fast com- 
ing to be incapable of cool thought on 
party questions. 

The special mission to England was under- 
taken by the Chief Justice, Jay, who was 
the most experienced diplomat in America 
since the death of Franklin. Upon arriving 



COMMERCIAL ANTAGONISM 165 

in England he found the country wild 
with excitement and horror over the French 
Revolution and with all its interest concen- 
trated upon the effort to carry on land and 
naval war. The Pitt ministry was now 
supported by all Tories, representing the 
land-holding classes, the clergy and the pro- 
fessions, and by nearly all the aristocratic 
Whigs. Burke, one-time defender of the 
American Revolution, was exhausting his 
energies in eloquent and extravagant denun- 
ciations of the French. Only a handful of 
radicals, led by Fox, Sheridan and Camden, 
and representing a few constituents, still 
dared to proclaim liberal principles. In all 
other classes of society democracy was 
regarded as synonymous with bestial anarchy 
and infidelity. Clearly the United States, 
from its very nature as a republic, could 
hope for no favor, in spite of the noticeably 
English prepossessions of Hamilton's party. 
Jay dealt directly and informally with 
William Grenville, the Secretary for Foreign 
Affairs, and seems rapidly to have come to 
the conclusion that it was for the interest 
of the United States to get whatever it 
could, rather than to endeavor to haggle 
over details with an immovable and indif- 
ferent ministry, thereby hazarding all success. 
On his part Grenville clearly did his best 
to establish a practicable working arrange- 



166 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

ment, agreeing with Jay in so framing the 
treaty as to waive "principles" and "claims" 
and to include precise provisions . The upshot 
was that when Jay finished his negotiations 
he had secured a treaty which for the first 
time established a definite basis for commer- 
cial dealings and removed most of the dan- 
gerous outstanding difficulties. British debts 
were to be adjusted by a mixed commission, 
and American claims for unjust seizures 
in the West Indies were to be dealt with in 
similar fashion. The British were to evac- 
uate the northwestern military posts, and, 
while they did not withdraw or modify the 
so-called "rule of 1756," they agreed to a 
clear definition of contraband of war. They 
were also ready to admit American vessels of 
less than seventy tons to the British West 
Indies, provided the United States agreed 
not to export West India products for ten 
years. Here Jay, as in his dealings with Gar- 
doqui, showed a willingness to make a con- 
siderable sacrifice in order to gain a definite 
small point. On the whole, the treaty com- 
prised about all that the Pitt ministry, en- 
gaged in a desperate war with the French 
Republic, was likely to concede. 

The treaty left England in the winter of 
1795 and reached America after the adjourn- 
ment of Congress. Although it fell far short 
of what was hoped for, it still seemed to 



COMMERCIAL ANTAGONISM 167 

Washington wholly advisable to accept it un- 
der the circumstances as an alternative to 
further wrangling and probable war. Sent 
under seal of secrecy to the Senate, in special 
session, its contents were none the less re- 
vealed by an opposition senator and a temp- 
est of disappointment and anger swept the 
country. In every seaport Jay was execrated 
as a fool and traitor and burned in effigy, 
but Washington was unmoved. The Senate 
voted ratification by a bare two-thirds, but 
struck out the West India article, prefer- 
ring to retain the power of reexporting 
French West India produce rather than to 
acquire the direct trade with the English 
islands. Washington added his signature, the 
British government accepted the amendment, 
and the treaty went into effect. The West 
India privilege was in fact granted by the 
Pitt ministry, as in the treaty, owing to the 
demands of the West India planters. In 
America the storm blew itself out in a few 
weeks of noise and anger and the country 
settled down to make the best of the privi- 
leges gained, which, however incomplete, 
were well worth the effort. 

So the Federalist administration kept the 
United States neutral and gave it at last a 
definite commercial status with England. 
It did more, for in August, 1795, the north- 
western Indians, beaten in battle and de- 



168 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

prived of the presence of their protectors, 
made a treaty abandoning all claims to 
the region south of Lake Erie. Still further, 
the Spanish government, on hearing of the 
Jay treaty, came to terms in October, 1795, 
agreeing to the boundaries of 1783, granting 
a "right of deposit" to American trades down 
the Mississippi at or near New Orleans, and 
promising to abandon Indian intrigues. 
The diplomatic campaign of the Federalists 
seemed to be crowned with general success. 
But in the process the passions of the 
American people had become deeply stirred, 
and by the end of 1795 the Federalist party 
could no longer, as at the outset, count on 
the support of all the mercantile elements and 
all the townspeople, for, by their policy 
toward France and England, Washington, 
Hamilton and their associates had set them- 
selves against the underlying prejudices and 
beliefs of the American voters. The years 
of the strong government reaction were at 
an end. The time had come to fight for 
party existence. 

CHAPTER IX 

THE TRIUMPH OF DEMOCRACY IN THE UNITED 
STATES 1795-1805 

With the temporary shelving of English 
antagonism the Federalist administration 



TRIUMPH OF DEMOCRACY 169 

passed its second great crisis; but it was 
immediately called upon to face new and 
equally serious differences with France which 
were ultimately to prove the cause of its 
downfall. The fundamental difficulty in the 
political situation in America was that the 
two parties were now so bitterly opposed as 
to render every governmental act a test of 
party strength. The Republicans, who ac- 
cepted the leadership of Jefferson or of Clin- 
ton of New York, now comprised all who fav- 
ored democracy in any sense, — whether 
that of human equality, or local self-gov- 
ernment, or freedom from taxes, or sympathy 
with France, — and all who had any griev- 
ance) against the administration, from fron- 
tiersmen whose cabins had not been pro- 
tected against Indians or who had been 
forced to pay a whiskey tax, to seamen 
whose ships had not been protected by the 
Jay treaty. In short, all in whom still per- 
sisted the deep-rooted old colonial traditions 
of opposition to strong government and dis- 
like of any but local authorities were sum- 
moned to oppose an administration on 
the good familiar ground that it was work- 
ing against their liberties by corruption, 
usurpation, financial burdens and gross 
partisanship for England and against France. 
On the other side the Federalists were 
rapidly acquiring a state of mind sub- 



170 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

stantially Tory in character. They were 
coming to dread and detest "democracy" 
as dangerous to the family and to society 
as well as to government, and to identify 
it with the guillotine and the blasphemies 
of the Worship of Reason. In the furious 
attacks which, after the fashion of the day 
the opposition papers hurled against every 
act of the Federalist leaders and which 
aimed as much to defile their characters as 
to discredit their policies, they saw a pit 
of anarchy yawning. Between parties so 
constituted no alternative remained but 
a fight to a finish, and from the moment the 
Federalists became genuinely anti-demo- 
cratic they were doomed. Only accident 
or conspicuous success on the part of their 
leaders could delay their destruction. A 
single false step on their part meant ruin. 
With the ratification of the Jay treaty, 
a long period of peaceful relations began 
between England and the United States. 
The American shipowners quickly adapted 
themselves to the situation, and soon were 
prosperously occupied] in neutral commerce. 
In England American affairs dropped wholly 
out of public notice during the exciting 
and anxious years of the war of the second 
coalition. The Pitt ministry ended, leaving 
the country under the grip of a rigid repres- 
sion of all liberal thought or utterance, and 



TRIUMPH OF DEMOCRACY 171 

was followed by the commonplace Toryism 
of Addington and his colleagues. Then came 
the Treaty of Amiens with France, the year 
of peace, the renewed war in 1803 and, after 
an interval of confused parliamentary wrang- 
lings, the return to power of Pitt in 1804, 
called by the voice of the nation to meet the 
crisis of the threatened French invasion. 
The United States was forgotten, diplo- 
matic relations sank to mere routine. Such 
were the unquestionable benefits of the 
execrated treaty made by Jay and Gren- 
ville. 

With France, however, American rela- 
tions became suddenly strained, as a result 
of the same treaty. The French Republic, 
in the year 1795, was finally reorganized 
under a definite constitution as a Directorate, 
— a republic with a plural executive of 
five. This government, ceasing to be merely 
a revolutionary body, undertook to play 
the game of grand politics and compelled 
all the neighboring smaller states to submit 
to democratic revolutions, accept a con- 
stitution on the French model and become 
dependent allies of the French Republic. 
The local democratic faction, large or small, 
was in each case utilized to carry through 
this program, which was always accompanied 
with corruption and plunder to swell the 
revenues of France and fill the pockets of the 



172 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

directors and their agents. Such a policy the 
Directorate now endeavored, as a matter 
of course, to carry out with the United 
States, expecting to ally themselves with 
the Jeffersonian party and to bribe or bully 
the American Republic into a lucrative al- 
liance. The way was prepared by the in- 
fatuation with which Randolph, Jefferson, 
Madison and other Republican leaders had 
unbosomed themselves to Fauchet, and also 
by an unfortunate blunder which had led 
Washington to send James Monroe as 
minister to France in 1794. This man was 
known to be an active sympathizer with 
France, and it was hoped that his influence 
would assist in keeping friendly relations; 
but his conduct was calculated to do nothing 
but harm. When the news of the Jay 
treaty came to France the Directorate 
chose to regard it as an unfriendly act, and 
Monroe, sharing their feelings, exerted him- 
self rather to mollify their resentment than 
to justify his country. 

In 1796 a new minister, Adet, was sent 
to the United States to remain only in case 
the government should adopt a just policy 
toward France. This precipitated a party 
contest squarely on the issue of French rela- 
tions. In the first place Congress, after a 
bitter struggle and by a bare .majority, voted 
to appropriate the money to carry the Jay 



TRIUMPH OF DEMOCRACY 173 

treaty into effect. This was a defeat for the 
French party. In the second place, in spite of 
a manifesto issued by Adet, threatening 
French displeasure, the presidential electors 
gave a majority of three votes for Adams 
over Jefferson to succeed Washington. The 
election had been a sharp party struggle, 
the whole theory of a deliberate choice by 
electors vanishing in the stress of partisan 
excitement. After this second defeat the 
French minister withdrew, severing dip- 
lomatic relations, and French vessels began 
to capture American merchantmen, to 
impress the country with the serious re- 
sults of French irritation. The Washing- 
ton administration now recalled Monroe 
and sent C. C. Pinckney to replace him, 
but the directorate, while showering Monroe 
with compliments, refused to receive Pinck- 
ney at all and virtually expelled him from 
the country. In the midst of these annoy- 
ing events Washington's term closed and 
the sorely tried man, disgusted with party 
abuse and what he felt to be national in- 
gratitude, retired to his Virginia estates, 
no longer the president of the whole country, 
but the leader of a faction. His Farewell 
Address showed, under its stately phrases, 
his detestation of party controversy and his 
fears for the future. 

Washington's successor, Adams, was a 



174 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

man of less calmness and steadiness of soul; 
independent, but with a somewhat petu- 
lant habit of mind, and nervously afraid 
of ceasing to be independent; a man of sound 
sense, yet of a too great personal vanity. His 
treatment of the French situation showed 
national pride and dignity as well as an 
adherence to the traditional Federalist pol- 
icy of avoiding war. Unfortunately his 
handling of the party leaders was so deficient 
in tact as to assist in bringing quick and final 
defeat upon himself and upon them. 

The relations with France rapidly devel- 
oped into an international scandal. Adams, 
supported by his party, determined to send 
a mission of three, including Pinckney, in 
order to restore friendly relations, as well 
as to protest against depredations and seiz- 
ures which the few French cruisers 'at sea 
were now beginning to make. In the spring 
of 1798, however, the commission reported 
that its efforts had failed and Adams was 
obliged to lay its correspondence before 
Congress. This showed that the great 
obstacle in the way of carrying on negotia- 
tions with the French had been the per- 
sistent demands on the part of Talleyrand, — 
the French minister of foreign affairs, — for 
a preliminary money payment, either under 
the form of a so-called "loan" or as a bribe 
outright. Such a revelation of venality 



TRIUMPH OF DEMOCRACY 175 

struck dumb the Republican leaders who had 
kept asserting their distrust of Adams's 
sincerity and accusing the administration 
of injustice toward France. For the moment 
a storm of disgust and anger against the 
bullying French Republic swept over the 
country, taking all heart out of the opposi- 
tion members of Congress and encouraging 
the Federalists to commit the government 
to actual hostilities with the hated Demo- 
crats and Jacobins. Declaring the treaties 
of 1778 to be abrogated. Congress authorized 
naval reprisals, voted money and a loan, 
and so began what was called a "quasi- 
war," since neither side made a formal 
declaration. Adams, riding on the crest of a 
brief wave of popularity, declared in a mes- 
sage to Congress that he would never send 
another minister to France without receiv- 
ing assurances that he would be received 
as "befitted the representative of a great, 
free, powerful and independent nation." 
"Millions for defence but not a cent for 
tribute!" became the Federalist watch- 
word, and, when the little navy of a few frig- 
ates and sloops began to bring in French 
men-of-war and privateers as prizes, the 
country actually felt a thrill of pride and 
manhood. For the moment the United 
States stood side by side with England in 
fighting the dangerous enemy of civili- 



176 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

zation. American Federalist and English 
Tory were at one; Adams and Pitt were 
carrying on the same war. 

But unfortunately for the Federalists 
they failed to appreciate the fundamental 
differences between the situation in England 
and in the United States, for they went 
on to imitate the mother country, not merely 
in fighting the French, but in seeking to 
suppress what they felt to be dangerous 
"Jacobinical" features of American poli- 
tics. In the summer of 1798 three laws were 
enacted which have become synonymous 
with party folly. Two, — the Alien Acts, — 
authorized the President at his discretion 
to imprison or deport any alien, friend or 
enemy; the third, — the Sedition Act, — pun- 
ished by fine and imprisonment any utter- 
ance or publication tending to cause op- 
position to a federal law or to bring into con- 
tempt the federal government or any of its 
officers. Such statutes had stood in England 
since 1793 and were used to suppress demo- 
cratic assailants of the monarchy; but such 
a law in the United States could mean 
nothing more than the suppression by Fed- 
eralist courts of criticisms upon the admin- 
istration made by Republican newspapers. 
It furnished every opposition agitator with 
a deadly weapon for use against the adminis- 
tration, and when the Sedition Law was ac- 



TRIUMPH OF DEMOCRACY 177 

tually enforced and a half-dozen Republican 
editors were subjected to fine or imprison- 
ment [for scurrilous but scarcely dangerous 
utterances, the demonstration of the in- 
herently tyrannical nature of the Federalists 
seemed to be complete. It was an unpardon- 
able political blunder. 

Equally damaging to the prosperity of the 
Federalist party was the fact that the French 
Republic, instead of accepting the issue, 
showed a complete unwillingness to fight 
and protested in public that it was having 
a war forced upon it. Talleyrand showered 
the United States through every channel, 
official or unofficial, with assurances of 
kindly feelings, and, so soon as he learned 
of Adams's demand for a suitable reception 
for an American minister, gave the re- 
quired assurance in his exact words. Under 
the circumstances the war preparations of 
the Federalists became visibly superfluous, 
especially a provisional army which Congress 
had authorized under Hamilton as active 
commander. The opposition press and 
speakers denounced this as a Federalist 
army destined to act against the liberties 
of the people, and the administration could 
point to no real danger to justify its existence. 

So high ran party spirit that the Virginian 
leaders thought or affected to think it neces- 
sary to prepare for armed resistance to 



178 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

Federalist oppression, and Madison and 
Jefferson, acting through the state legisla- 
tures of Virginia and Kentucky respectively, 
caused the adoption of two striking series 
of resolutions stating the crisis in Republican 
phraseology. In each case, after denouncing 
the Alien and Sedition laws as unconstitu- 
tional, the legislatures declared that the 
constitution was nothing more than a com- 
pact between sovereign states; that the 
federal government, the creature of the com- 
pact, was not the final judge of its powers, 
and that in case of a palpable usurpation 
of powers by the federal government it was 
the duty of the states to "interpose," in 
the words of Madison, or to "nullify" 
the federal law, as Jefferson phrased it. Such 
language seemed to Washington, Adams 
and their party to signify that the time 
was coming when they must fight for national 
existence; but to the opposition it seemed 
no more than a restatement of time-hallowed 
American principles of government, neces- 
sary to save liberty from a reactionary 
faction. Party hatred now rivalled that 
between revolutionary Whigs and Tories. 
Under these circumstances the election 
of 1800 took place. The Federalist party 
leaders, feeling the ground quaking under 
them, clung the more desperately to the 
continuance of the French "quasi- war" 



TRIUMPH OF DEMOCRACY 179 

as their sole means for rallying popular sup- 
port. But at this stage President Adams, 
seeing the folly of perpetuating a sham war 
for mere party advantage, determined to 
reopen negotiations. This precipitated a 
bitter quarrel, for the members of his cabinet 
and the leading congressmen still regarded 
Hamilton, now a private citizen in New York, 
as the real leader, and followed him in urging 
the continuance of hostilities. Adams, un- 
able to manage his party opponents openly, 
took refuge in sudden, secret and, as they 
felt, treacherous conduct and sent nomina- 
tions for a new French mission without 
consulting his advisers. The Federalist 
Senate, raging at Adams's stupidity, could 
not refuse to ratify the appointments, and 
so in 1799 the new mission sailed, was re- 
spectfully received by Bonaparte and was 
promptly admitted to negotiations. 

The Federalist party now ran straight 
toward defeat; for, while the leaders could 
not avoid supporting Adams for a second 
term, they hated him as a blunderer and 
marplot. On his part, his patience exhausted, 
Adams dismissed two of his secretaries, in 
a passion, in 1800. Later, through the wiles 
of Aaron Burr, Republican leader in New 
York, a pamphlet, written by Hamilton to 
prove Adams's utter unfitness for the Presi- 
dency, was brought to light and circulated. 



180 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

Against this discredited and disorganized 
party the Republicans, supporting Jeffer- 
son again for President and thundering 
against the Sedition Law, triumphantly car- 
ried a clear majority of electoral votes in the 
autumn, but by a sheer oversight they gave 
an equal number for Jefferson and for Burr, 
who was only intended for Vice-president. 
Hence under the terms of the constitution 
it became necessary for the House of Rep- 
resentatives to make the final selection, 
voting by states. It fell thus to the lot of the 
Federalist House of 1800-1801 to choose the 
next President, and for a while the members 
showed an inclination to support Burr, 
as at least a Northerner, rather than Jeffer- 
son. But better judgments ruled and 
finally Jefferson was awarded the place 
which he had in fairness won. The last 
weeks of Federalist rule were filled with a 
discreditable effort to save what was possible 
from the wreck. New offices were estab- 
lished, including a whole system of circuit 
judgeships, and Adams spent his time up to 
the last hour of his term in signing com- 
missions, stealing away in the early morning 
in order not to see the inauguration of his 
rival. 

So fell the Federalist party from power. 
It had a brilliant record in legislation and 
administration; it had created a new United 



TRIUMPH OF DEMOCRACY 181 

States; it had shown a statesmanship never 
equalled before or since on this continent; 
but it ruined itself by endeavoring openly 
to establish a system of government founded 
on distrust of the people, and modelled after 
English precedents. For a few years England 
and the United States approached nearer 
in government and policy than at any other 
time. But while in England the bulk of 
society, — the nobility, gentry, middle classes ; 
the professions, the church and all strong 
political elements — supported Pitt in sup- 
pressing free speech and individual liberty, 
the Federalists represented only a minority, 
and their social principles were abhorrent 
to the vast majority of the inhabitants of 
the United States. 

The Republican party, which conquered 
by what Jefferson considered to be a revo- 
lution no less important than that of 1776, 
represented a reaction to the old ideals of 
government traditional in colonial times, 
— ^namely as little taxation as possible, as 
much local independence as could exist 
and the minimum of federal authority. 
Jefferson professed to believe that the con- 
duct of foreign relations was the only 
important function of the central government, 
all else properly belonging to the states. So 
complete was the Republican victory that 
the party had full power to put its principles 



182 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

into ejffect. It controlled both houses of 
Congress, and was blessed with four years 
of peace and prosperity. But Thomas Jef- 
ferson, for all his radicalism in language, 
was a shrewd party leader, whose actions 
were uniformly cautious and whose entire 
habit of mind favored avoidance of any 
violent change. "Scientific" with the gen- 
eral interests of a French eighteenth cen- 
tury "philosopher," he was limited in his 
views of public policies by his education 
as a Virginia planter, wholly out of sym- 
pathy with finance, commerce or business. 
Under his guidance, accordingly, the United 
Stiites government was subjected to what he 
called "a chaste reformation," rather than 
to a general overturning. 

All expenses were cut down, chiefly at 
the cost of the army and navy; all appro- 
priations were rigorously diminished, and 
all internal taxes were swept away. Since 
commerce continued active, there still re- 
mained a surplus revenue, and this Gallatin, 
the Secretary of the Treasury, applied to 
extinguishing the debt. A few of the more 
important federal offices were taken from 
embittered Federalists and given to Re- 
publicans, but there was no general pro- 
scription of officeholders. The only action 
at all radical in character was the repeal of 
the law establishing new circuit judge- 



TRIUMPH OF DEMOCRACY 183 

ships, a step which legislated a number of 
Federalists out of office. The repeal was 
denounced by fervid Federalist orators as a 
violation of the constitution and a death- 
blow to the Union, but the appointments 
under the law itself had been so grossly 
partisan that the country was unalarmed. 
With these steps the Republican reaction 
ended. Jefferson and his party carried 
through no alteration of the central depart- 
ments; they abandoned no federal power 
except that of laying an excise; they did 
not even repeal the charter of the National 
Bank. The real change lay in the more 
strictly economical finances and in the 
general spirit of government. The Federal- 
ist opposition, criticising every act with 
bitterness and continually predicting ruin, 
found that under the '* Jacobins" the country 
remained contented and prosperous and 
was in no more danger of atheism or the 
guillotine than it had been under Adams. 
So matters went on, year after year, the 
federal government playing its part quietly 
and the American people carrying on their 
vocations in peace and prosperity. 

Jefferson 's general theory of foreign affairs 
was based on the idea that diplomacy 
was mainly a matter of bargain and sale, 
with national commerce as the deciding 
factor. He believed so firmly that national 



184 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

self-interest would lead all European powers 
to make suitable treaties with the United 
States that he considered the navy as 
wholly superfluous and would have been 
glad to sell it. But when circumstances 
arose calling for a different sort of diplomacy, 
he was ready to modify his methods, and he 
so far recognized the unsuitability of peaceful 
measures in dealing with the Barbary cor- 
sairs as to permit the small American navy 
to carry on extensive operations ' during 
1801-3, which ended in the submission' of 
Tripoli and Algiers. 

Simultaneously Jefferson was brought face 
to face with a diplomatic crisis, arising 
from the peculiar actions of his old ally, 
France. At the outset of his administration 
Jefferson found the treaty made by Adams 's 
commissioners in 1800 ready for ratification, 
and thus began his career with all questions 
settled, thanks to his predecessor. But he 
had been in ofl&ce only a few months when 
the behavior of the Spanish oflScials at New 
Orleans gave cause for alarm; for they sud- 
denly terminated the right of deposit, 
granted in 1795. It was quickly rumored 
that the reason was to be found in the fact 
that France, now under the first consul. 
Napoleon, had regained Louisiana. It was, 
in fact, true. Bonaparte overthrew the 
Directorate in 1799 and established himself, 



TRIUMPH OF DEMOCRACY 185 

under the thin disguise of "First Consul," 
as practical military despot in France. He 
had immediately embraced the idea of es- 
tablishing a western colonial empire which 
should be based on San Domingo, now 
controlled by insurgent negroes, and which 
should include Louisiana. By a treaty of 
October 1, 1800, he compelled Spain to retro- 
cede the former French province in return 
for a promise to establish a kingdom of 
"Etruria" for a Spanish prince. During 
1802 large armaments sailed to San Domingo 
and began the process of reconquest. It 
needed only the completion of that task for 
Napoleon to be ready to take over Louisiana 
and thereby to gain absolute control over 
the one outlet from the interior territories of 
the United States. 

Jefferson at once recognized the extreme 
gravity of the situation. During the years 
after the English, Spanish and Indian treat- 
ies, emigrants had steadily worked their way 
into the inner river valleys. Western New 
York and Pennsylvania were rapidly filling, 
Ohio was settled up to the Indian treaty 
line, Kentucky and Tennessee were doubling 
in population, and fringes of pioneer com- 
munities stretched along the Ohio and Missis- 
sippi rivers. In 1796 Tennessee was admitted 
as a state, and Ohio was now, in 1801, on the 
point of asking admission. For France 



186 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

to shut the only possible outlet for these 
communities would be a sentence of eco- 
nomic death, and Jefferson was so deeply 
moved as to write to Livingston, his minister 
to France, that if the rumor of the cession 
were true, "We must marry ourselves to the 
British fleet and nation. " The United States 
must fight rather than submit. He sent 
Monroe to France, instructed to buy an 
outlet, but the latter only arrived in time 
to join with Livingston in signing a treaty 
for the purchase of the whole of Louisiana. 
This startling event was the result of the 
failure of Napoleon's forces to reconquer 
San Domingo. Foreseeing the loss of Loui- 
siana in case of the probable renewal|of war 
with England, and desirous of money for 
immediate use, the Corsican adventurer sud- 
denly threw Louisiana into the astonished 
hands of Livingston and Monroe. He had 
never, it is true, given Spain the promised 
compensation; he had never taken possession, 
and he had promised not to sell it; but such 
trifles never impeded Napoleon, nor, in 
this case, did they hinder Jefferson. When 
the treaty came to America, Congress was 
quickly convened, the Senate voted to ratify, 
the money was appropriated and the whole 
vast region bought for the sum of sixty million 
francs. Jefferson himself, the apostle of a 
strict construction of the constitution, could 



TRIUMPH OF DEMOCRACY 187 

not discover any clause authorizing such a 
purchase, but his party was undisturbed, 
and the great annexation was carried through, 
Jefferson acquiescing in the inconsistency. 
The chagrin of the FederaHsts at this 
enormous southwestward extension of the 
country was exceeded only by their alarm 
when an attempt was made to eject certain 
extremely partisan judges from their offices 
in Pennsylvania and on the federal bench 
by the process of impeachment. In the 
first two cases the effort was successful, 
one Pennsylvania judge and one federal 
district judge being ejected; but when, in 
1805, the attack was aimed at the Pennsyl- 
vania supreme justices and at Justice Chase 
of the United States Supreme Court, the 
process broke down. The defence of the 
accused judges was legally too strong to be 
overcome, and each impeachment failed. 
With this the last echo of the party contest 
seemed to end, for by this time the Federal- 
ists were too discredited and too weak to 
make a political struggle. Their member- 
ship in Congress had shrunk to small figures, 
they had lost state after state, and in 1804 
they practically let Jefferson's reelection 
go by default. He received all but 14 
electoral votes, out of 176. Some of the 
New England leaders plotted secession, but 
they were not strong enough for that. The 



188 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

party seemed dead. In 1804 its ablest 
mind, Hamilton, was killed in a duel with 
Burr, the Vice-president, and nobody re- 
mained capable of national leadership. 

So the year 1805 opened in humdrum 
prosperity and national self-satisfaction. 
Jefferson could look upon a country in 
which he held a position rivalled only by 
that of a European monarch or an Eng- 
lish prime minister. The principles of 
Republican equality, of states' rights, of 
economy and retrenchment, of peace and 
local self-government seemed triumphant 
beyond reach of attack. While Europe re- 
sounded with battles and marches, America 
lived in contented isolation, free from the 
cares of unhappy nations living under the 
ancient ideals. 



CHAPTER X 

THE SECOND PERIOD OF COMMERCIAL ANTAG- 
ONISM 1805-1812 

In the year 1805 the happy era of Repub- 
lican prosperity and complacency came 
suddenly and violently to an end, for by 
this time forces were in operation which drew 
the United States, in utter disregard of Jeffer- 
son 's theories, into the sweep of the tremen- 
dous political cyclone raging in Europe. In 



COMMERCIAL ANTAGONISM 189 

1803 Napoleon forced England into renewed 
war, and for two years endeavored by elabo- 
rate naval manoeuvres to secure control of 
the channel for a sufficient time to permit 
him to transport his "Grand Army" to the 
British shore. In 1805, however, these 
plans broke down,*and the crushing defeat 
of the allied French and Spanish navies at 
Trafalgar jnarked the end of any attempt 
to challenge the English maritime supremacy. 
The great military machine of the French 
army was then turned eastward against the 
armies of the coalition which England, under 
Pitt, was forming, and in a series of aston- 
ishing campaigns it was used to beat down 
the Austrians in 1805 at Austerlitz; to over- 
whelm the Prussians in 1806 at Jena and 
Auerstadt; and to force the Russians, after 
a severe winter campaign in East Prussia, 
to come to terms in 1807. Napoleon and 
the Tsar, Alexander, meeting on the bridge 
at Tilsit, July 7, divided Europe between 
them by agreeing upon a policy of spheres 
of interest, which left Turkey and the Orient 
for Russian expansion and all the beaten 
western monarchies for French domina- 
tion. The Corsican captain, trampling on 
the ruins both of the French monarchy and 
the French Republic, stood as the most 
terrible and astounding figure in the world, 
invincible by land, the master of Europe. 



190 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

But the withdrawal of the French from 
any attempt to contest the sea left England 
the equally undisputed master of all oceans, 
and rendered the French wholly dependent 
upon neutral nations for commerce. As 
French conquests led to annexations of ter- 
ritory in Italy and in Germany, these re- 
gions also found themselves unable to im- 
port with their own vessels, and so neutral 
commerce found ever increasing markets 
dependent upon its activity. Now the 
most energetic maritime neutral power was 
the United States, whose merchantmen 
hastened to occupy the field left vacant by 
the practical extinction of the French carry- 
ing trade. Until 1807 they shared !this with 
the Scandinavian countries, but after that 
year Napoleon, by threats and the terror 
of his name, forced an unwelcome alliance 
upon all the states of Europe, and the United 
States became the sole important neutral. 

Under the circumstances the merchant 
shipping of the United States flourished enor- 
mously, the more especially since, by im- 
porting and immediately reexporting West 
India products from the French islands, Yan- 
kee skippers were able to avoid the dangerous 
"Rule of 1756" and send sugar and cocoa 
from French colonies to Europe and to 
England under the guise of American prod- 
uce. By 1805 the whole supply of Euro- 



COMMERCIAL ANTAGONISM 191 

pean sugar was carried in American bottoms, 
to the enormous profit of the United States. 
American ships also shared largely in the 
coasting trade of Europe, carrying goods 
between ports where British ships were 
naturally excluded. In fact the great pros- 
perity and high customs receipts to which 
the financial success of the Jeffersonians 
was due depended to a great extent on the 
fortunate neutral situation of the United 
States. 

By 1805 the British shipowners felt that 
flesh and blood could not endure the situ- 
ation. Here were France and her allies 
easily escaping the hardships of British 
naval pressure by employing neutrals to 
carry on their trade. Worse still, the Ameri- 
cans, by the device of entering and clearing 
French sugar at an American port, were 
now able calmly to take it to England and 
undersell the West Indian planters in their 
own home market. Pamphleteers began to 
criticise the government for permitting such 
unfair competition. Lord Sheffield, as in 
1783, leading the way. But in October, 
1805, James Stephen, a far abler writer, 
summed up the anger of the British ship- 
owners and naval officers in a pamphlet 
entitled, "War in disguise, or the Frauds of 
the Neutral Trade." He asserted that the 
whole American neutral commerce was noth- 



192 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

ing more nor less than an evasion of the Rule 
of 1756 for the joint benefit of France and 
the United States, and he called upon the 
government to put a stop to this practical 
alliance of America with Napoleon. This 
utterance seems to have made a profound im- 
pression, and for a time his views became the 
fixed beliefs of influential public men as well 
as of the naval and ship-owning interests. 

The first steps indicating British rest- 
lessness were taken by the Pitt ministry, 
which began, in 1804, a policy of rigid 
naval search for contraband cargoes, largely 
carried on off American ports. Whatever 
friendly views Pitt may once have enter- 
tained toward the Americans, his ministry 
now had for its sole object the contest with 
France and the protection of British in- 
terests. In July, 1805j a severe blow was 
suddenly struck by Sir William Scott, who 
as chief Admiralty judge rendered a decision 
to the effect that French sugar, entered at an 
American custom-house and reexported with 
a rebate of the duty, was good prize under 
the Rule of 1756. This placed all American 
reexportation of French West Indian prod- 
ucts at the mercy of British cruisers, 
and the summer of 1805 saw a sudden 
descent of naval officers upon their prey, 
causing an outcry of anger from every 
seaport between Maine and Maryland. The 



COMMERCIAL ANTAGONISM 19^ 

day of reckoning had come, and Jefferson 
and Madison, his Secretary of State, were 
compelled to meet the crisis. Fortunately, 
as it appeared for the United States, the 
Pitt ministry ended with the death of its 
leader on January 23, 1806, and was suc- 
ceeded by a coalition in which Lord Gren- 
ville, author of the Jay treaty, was prime 
minister, and Fox, an avowed ^friend of 
America, was foreign secretary. While it 
was not reasonably to be expected that any 
English ministry would throw over the tra- 
ditional naval policy of impressments or 
venture to run directly counter to the de- 
mands of the British shipping interests, it 
was open to anticipation that some such 
compromise as the Jay treaty might be 
agreed upon, which would relieve the United 
States from arbitrary exactions during the 
European war. The Grenville ministry 
showed its good intentions by abandon- 
ing the policy of captures authorized by Scott 
and substituting, on May 16, 1806, a block- 
ade of the French coast from Ostend to the 
Seine. This answered the purpose of hin- 
dering trade with France without raising 
troublesome questions, and actually allowed 
American vessels to take sugar to Northern 
Europe. 

Between 1804 and 1806 Jefferson had 
brought the United States to the verge of 



194 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

war with Spain through insisting that 
Napoleon's cession of Louisiana had in- 
cluded West Florida. At the moment when 
British seizures began, he was attempting 
at once to frighten Spain by warlike words 
and at the same time, by a payment of two 
million dollars, to induce France to compel 
Spain to acknowledge the American title 
to the disputed territory. For this reason, 
during a number of years and until the 
scheme fell through, Jefferson cultivated 
especially friendly relations with the gov- 
ernment of Napoleon, not from any of the 
former Republican enthusiasm, but solely 
on diplomatic grounds. Hence, although 
nominally neutral in the great war, he bore 
the appearance to the English of a French 
partisan, which rendered their diplomacy 
suspicious and defensive. 

Jefferson felt that he had in his possession 
a thoroughly adequate means to secure 
favorable treatment from England by simply 
threatening commercial retaliation. The 
American trade, he believed, was so neces- 
sary to the prosperity of England that 
for the sake of retaining it that country 
would make any reasonable concession. 
That there was a basis of truth in this 
belief it would be impossible to deny; 
for England consumed American cotton 
and exported largely to American markets. 



COMMERCIAL ANTAGONISM 195 

With this trade cut off, manufacturers and 
exporters would suffer, as they had suffered 
in the revolutionary period. But Jefferson 
ignored what every American merchant 
knew, that military and naval considerations 
weighed fully as heavily with England as 
mercantile needs, and that a country which 
had neither a ship of the hue, nor a single 
army corps in existence, commanded, in 
an age of world warfare, very slight respect. 
Jefferson's prejudice against professional 
armed forces and his ideal of war as a purely 
voluntary matter, carried on as in colonial 
times, was sufficiently proclaimed by him 
to be well understood across the Atlantic. 
Openly disbelieving m war, accordingly, 
avowedly determined not to fight, he ap- 
proached a nation struggling for life with 
the greatest military power on earth and 
called upon it to come to terms for business 
reasons. 

His first effort was made by causing Con- 
gress to pass a Non-importation Act, ex- 
cluding certain British goods, which was not 
to go into effect until the end of 1806. 
With this as his sole weapon, he sent Mon- 
roe to make a new treaty, demanding free 
commerce and the cessation of the impress- 
ment of seamen from American vessels in re- 
turn for the continued non-enforcement of 
the Non-importation Act. Such a task was 



196 ENGLISH AND AMEMCAN WARS 

more difficult than that laid upon Jay twelve 
years before, and Monroe, in spite of the fact 
that he was dealing with the same minister, 
failed to accomplish even so much as his 
predecessor. From August to December he 
negotiated, first with Lord Holland, then, 
after Fox's death, with Lord Ho wick, but 
the treaty which he signed December 1, 
1806, contained not one of the points named 
in his instructions. Monroe found the Eng- 
lish willing to make only an agreement like 
the Jay treaty which, while containing special 
provisions to make the situation tolerable, 
should refuse to yield any British contentions. 
That was the Whig policy as much in 1806 
as it had been in 1766. But the concessions 
were slight, and the chief one, regarding the 
reexportation of French West Indian prod- 
ucts, permitted it only on condition that 
the goods were bona fide of American owner- 
ship and had paid in the United States a 
duty of at least two per cent. Jefferson did 
not even submit the treaty to the Senate. 

After this failure the situation grew graver. 
Napoleon, in December, 1806, issued from 
Berlin a decree declaring that, in retalia- 
tion for the aggressions of England upon 
neutral commerce, the British Isles were 
in blockade and all trade with them was for- 
bidden. British goods were to be absolutely 
excluded from the continent. The reply of 



COMMERCIAL ANTAGONISM 197 

the Grenville ministry to this was an Order 
in Council, January, 1807, prohibiting neu- 
tral vessels from trading between the ports of 
France or her allies; but this was denounced 
as utterly weak by Perceval and Canning 
in opposition. In April, 1807, the Grenville 
ministry, turned out of office by the half 
insane George III, was replaced by a tho- 
roughly Tory cabinet, under the Duke of 
Portland, whose chief members in the Com- 
mons were George Canning and Spencer 
Perceval, Foreign Secretary and Chancellor 
of the Exchequer respectively. The United 
States was now to undergo treatment of a 
new kind at the hands of Tories, who de- 
spised its institutions, felt only contempt for 
the courage of its government, and were 
guided as regards American commerce by 
the doctrines of Lord Sheffield and James 
Stephen. 

An Order in Council of November 11, 
1807, drafted by Perceval and endorsed 
by all the rest of the cabinet, declared that 
no commerce with France or her allies 
was henceforward to be permitted unless 
it had passed through English ports. To 
this Napoleon retorted by the Milan De- 
cree of December, 1807, proclaiming that 
all vessels which had been searched by 
English, or which came by way of England, 
were good prize. Henceforth, then, neutral 



198 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

commerce was positively prohibited. The 
merchantmen of the United States could 
continue to trade at all only by definitely 
siding with one power or the other. The 
object of the British order was declared to 
be retaliation on Napoleon, but its actual 
effect was to place American trade once 
more under the rule of the Navigation 
Acts. As in the days before 1776, American 
vessels must make England their "staple" 
or "entrepot," arid could go only where 
permitted to by English orders under pen- 
alty of forfeiture. This measure was sharply 
attacked in Parliament by the Whigs, es- 
pecially by Grenville and Howick, of the 
late ministry, but was triumphantly sus- 
tained by the Tories. 

At this time the chronic grievance of the 
impressment of seamen from American ves- 
sels grew suddenly acute. In the years of 
the great war the American merchant marine, 
with its safe voyages and good pay, offered 
a highly attractive prospect for English 
sailors, who dreaded the danger, the mo- 
notony and the severe discipline of British 
men-of-war. They swarmed by thousands 
into American service, securing as rapidly 
as possible, not infrequently by fraudulent 
means, the naturalization papers by which 
they hoped to escape the press-gang. Ever 
since 1793 British naval oflScers, recog- 



COMMERCIAL ANTAGONISM 199 

nizing no right of expatriation, systematic- 
ally impressed English seamen found on 
American ships and, owing to the difficulty 
in distinguishing the two peoples, numerous 
natives of New England and the middle 
states found themselves imprisoned on the 
"floating hell" of a British ship-of-the-line 
in an epoch when brutality characterized 
naval discipline. In August, 1807, the 
United States was stirred to fury over the 
forcible seizure by the British Leopard of 
three Englishmen from the U. S. S. Chesa- 
"jpeahe, which, unprepared for defence, had to 
suffer unresisting. So hot was the general 
anger that Jefferson could easily have led 
Congress into hostile measures, if not an 
actual declaration of war, over the midti- 
plied seizures and this last insult. 

But Jefferson clung to peace, and satis- 
fied himself by ordering British men-of- 
war out of American ports and sending a 
demand for reparation, with which he linked 
a renunciation of the right of impressment. 
When Congress met in December, he in- 
duced it to pass a general Embargo, posi- 
tively prohibiting the departure of American 
vessels to foreign ports. Since at the same 
time the Non-importation Act went into 
effect, all imports and exports were practically 
suspended. His idea was that the total 
cessation of American commerce would 



200 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

inflict such discomfort upon English and 
French consumers that each country would 
be forced to abandon its oppressive measures. 

Rarely has a country, at the instance of 
one man, inflicted a severer strain upon its 
citizens. The ravages of French and English 
together, since the outbreak of war in 1793, 
did not do so much damage as the Embargo 
did in one year, for it threatened ruin to 
every shipowner, importer and exporter in 
the United States. Undoubtedly Jefferson 
and his party had in mind the success of 
the non-importation agreements against the 
Stamp Act and the Townshend duties, but 
what was then the voluntary action of a 
great majority was now a burden imposed 
by one part of the country upon another. 
The people of New York and New England 
simply would not obey the act. To enforce 
it against Canada became an impossibility, 
and to prevent vessels from escaping a 
matter of great difficulty. Jefferson per- 
sisted doggedly and induced Congress to 
pass laws giving revenue collectors extraor- 
dinary powers of search and seizure, but 
without results. 

And now, under this intolerable grievance, 
the people of the oppressed regions rapidly 
lost their enthusiasm for the democratic 
administration. Turning once more to the 
Federalist party, which had seemed prac- 



COMMERCIAL ANTAGONISM 201 

tically extinct, they threw state after state 
into its hands and actually threatened the 
Republican control in the Presidential elec- 
tion of 1808. Had a coalition been arranged 
between the disgusted Republican factions 
of New York and Pennsylvania and the 
Federalists of New England, Delaware and 
Maryland, James Madison might well have 
been beaten for successor to Jefferson. But 
worse remained behind. The outraged New 
Englanders, led by Timothy Pickering and 
others, began to use again, in town-meetings 
and legislatures, the old-time language of 
1774, once employed against the Five Intol- 
erable Acts, and to threaten secession. As 
Jefferson said later," I felt the foundations 
of the government shaken under my feet 
by the New England townships." 

By this time it was definitely proved that 
as a means of coercion the Embargo was 
worthless. English manufacturers and their 
workmen complained, but English ship- 
owners profited, and crowds of British sea- 
men returned perforce to their home, even 
at times into the royal navy. Canning, for 
the Portland ministry, sarcastically de- 
clined to be moved, observing that the Em- 
bargo, whatever its motives, was practically 
the same as Napoleon's system, and Eng- 
land could not submit to being driven to 
surrender to France even to regain the 



202 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

American market or relieve the Americans 
from their self-inflicted sufferings. Napo- 
leon now gave an interesting taste of his 
peculiar methods, for on April 17, 1808, 
he issued the Bayonne Decree, ordering the 
confiscation of all American vessels found in 
French ports, on the ground that since the 
embargo prohibited the exit of American 
ships these must, in reality, be English! 
Thus he gathered in about eight million 
dollars' worth. The policy had to be 
abandoned, and in the utmost ill-humor 
Congress repealed the Embargo, March 1, 
1809, substituting non-intercourse with Eng- 
land and France. Thus Jefferson left oflSce 
under the shadow of a monumental fail- 
ure. His theory of commercial coercion 
had completely broken down, and he had 
damaged his own and his party's prestige 
to such an extent that the moribund Feder- 
alist organization had sprung to life and 
threatened the existence of the Union. 

From this time onward the New Eng- 
landers assumed the character of British 
sympathizers and admirers to a degree 
hardly credible. It was true that their ves- 
sels were the sufferers from British seizures, 
but no British confiscations had done them 
such harm as the Embargo, or taken such 
discreditable advantage of a transparent 
pretext as the Bayonne Decree. Belonging 



COMMERCIAL ANTAGONISM 203 

to the wealthy classes, they admired and 
respected England as defender of the world's 
civilization against Napoleon, and they de- 
tested Jefferson and Madison as tools of 
the enemy of mankind. They justified 
impressments, spoke respectfully of the 
British doctrines of trade and corresponded 
freely with British public men. They stood, 
in short, exactly where the Republicans had 
stood in 1793, supporters of a foreign power 
with which the Federal administration was 
in controversy. In Congress and outside 
they made steady, bitter and menacing at- 
tacks on the integrity and honesty of the 
Republicans. 

Under Jefferson's successor the policy of 
commercial pressure was carried to its 
final impotent conclusion. At first the 
action of the British government seemed to 
crown Madison with triumph. In the winter 
of 1809 the majority in Congress had talked 
freely of substituting war for the Embargo, 
and at the same time the Whigs in Parlia- 
naent, led by Grenville, had attacked Can- 
ning for his insolence toward the United 
States as likely to cause war. Whitbread 
called attention to the similarity between 
the conditions in 1809 and 1774, when "the 
same infatuation seemed to prevail," the 
same certainty existed that the Americans 
would not fight, and the same confident 



204 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

assertions were made that they could not 
do without England. The comparison pos- 
sessed much truth, for the Tories of 1809 
were fully as indifferent to American feel- 
ings as those of 1774, and pushed ahead 
with their commercial policy just as North 
had done with his political system, in the 
same contemptuous certainty that the Amer- 
icans would never fight. Yet Canning 
showed sufficient deference to his assailants 
to instruct Erskine, British minister at 
Washington, to notify Madison that the 
Orders would be withdrawn in case the 
United States kept its non-intercourse with 
France, recognized the Rule of 1756 and 
authorized British men-of-war to enforce 
the Non-intercourse Act. 

The immediate result was surprising, 
for Erskine, eager to restore harmony, did 
not disclose or carry out his instructions, 
but accepted the continuance by the United 
States of non-intercourse against France 
as a sufficient concession. He announced 
that the Orders in Council would be with- 
drawn on June 10; Madison in turn promptly 
issued a proclamation reopening trade, and 
swarms of American vessels rushed across 
the Atlantic. But Canning, in harsh lan- 
guage, repudiated the arrangement of his 
over-sanguine agent, and Madison was forced 
to the mortifying step of reimposing non- 



COMMERCIAL ANTAGONISM 205 

intercourse by a second proclamation. Still 
worse remained, for when F. J. Jackson, 
the next British minister, arrived, the 
President had to undergo the insult of being 
told that he had connived with Erskine 
in violating his instructions. The refusal 
to hold further relations with the blunt 
emissary was a poor satisfaction. All this 
time, moreover, reparation for the Chesa- 
peake affair was blocked, since it had been 
coupled with a demand for the renunciation 
of impressments, something that no British 
ministry would have dared to yield. 

On the part of Napoleon the Non-inter- 
course Act offered another opportunity for 
plunder. When he first heard of Erskine 's 
concessions he was on the point of meeting 
them, but on learning of their failure he 
changed about, commanded the sequestra- 
tion of all American vessels entering Euro- 
pean ports, and in May, 1810, by the 
Rambouillet Decree, he ordered their con- 
fiscation and sale. The ground assigned 
was that the Non-intercourse Act forbade 
any French or English vessel to enter Amer- 
ican ports under penalty of confiscation. 
None had been confiscated, but they might 
be. Hence he acted. Incidentally he helped 
fill his treasury and seized about ten mil- 
lions of American property. By this time 
it was clear to most Americans that, how- 



206 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

ever unfriendly the British policy, it was 
honesty itself compared to that of the 
Emperor, whose sole aim seemed to be to 
ensnare American vessels for the purpose 
of seizing them. The Federalists in Con- 
gress expatiated on his perfidy and bare- 
faced plunder, but] nothing could shake the 
intention of Madison to stick to commercial 
bargaining. Congress now passed another 
act, destined to be the last effort at peaceful 
coercion. Trade was opened, but the Presi- 
dent was authorized to reimpose non-in- 
tercourse with either nation if the other 
would withdraw its' decrees. This act, 
known always as the Macon Bill No. 2, be- 
came law in May, 1810, and Napoleon 
immediately seized the occasion for further 
sharp practice. He caused an unofficial, 
unsigned letter to be shown to the American 
minister at Paris stating that the French 
decrees would be withdrawn on November 
2, 1810, "it being understood that the Eng- 
lish should withdraw theirs by that time 
or the United States should cause its rights 
to be respected by England." Madison 
accordingly reimposed non-intercourse with 
England on the date named and con- 
sidered the French decrees withdrawn. The 
situation was regarded by him as though he 
had entered into a contract with Napoleon, 
which compelled him to assert that the 



COMMERCIAL ANTAGONISM 207 

decrees were at an end, although he had no 
other evidence than the existence of the situ- 
ation arising from the Macon Bill. There 
followed a period during which the American 
minister at London, William Pinkney, en- 
deavored without success to convince the 
British government that the decrees actually 
were withdrawn. The Portland ministry 
had fallen in 1809, and the sharp-tongued 
Canning was replaced in the foreign office 
by the courteous Marquess Wellesley; but 
Spencer Perceval, author of the Orders 
in Council, was prime minister and stiffly 
determined to adhere to his policy. James 
Stephen and George Rose, in Parliament, 
stood ready to defend them, and the Tory 
party as a whole accepted their necessity. 
When therefore Pinkney presented his re- 
quest to Wellesley, the latter naturally 
demanded something official from Napo- 
leon, which neither Pinkney nor Madison 
could supply. Finally, in February, 1811, 
Pinkney broke off diplomatic relations and 
returned home, having played his difficult 
part with dignity. To aggravate the situ- 
ation Napoleon's cruisers continued, when- 
ever they had a chance, to seize and burn 
American vessels bound for England, and 
his port authorities to sequester vessels 
arriving from England. The decrees were 
not in fact repealed. 



g08 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

Madison had committed himself, however, 
to upholding the honor of Napoleon, — a 
task from which any other man would have 
recoiled, — and the United States continued 
to insist on a fiction. Madison's conduct 
in this affair was that of a shrewd lawyer-like 
man who tried to carry on diplomacy be- 
tween two nations fighting to the death as 
though it were a matter of contracts, words 
and phrases of legal meaning. To Napo- 
leon legality was an incomprehensible idea. 
To the Tory ministries, struggling to main- 
tain their country against severe economic 
pressure, facts, not words, counted, and 
facts based on naval force. Upon the 
Jeffersonian and Madisonian attempts at 
peaceful coercion they looked with mingled 
annoyance and contempt, believing, as they 
did, that the whole American policy was 
that of a weak and cowardly nation trying 
by pettifogging means to secure favorable 
trade conditions. The situation had reached 
a point where the United States had nothing 
to hope from either contestant, by contin- 
uing this policy. 

At this juncture a new political force 
assumed control. By 1811 the old-time 
Republican leaders, trained in the school 
of Jeffersonian ideals, were practically bank- 
rupt. Faction paralyzed government, and 
Congress seemed, by its timid attitude, to 



COMMERCIAL ANTAGONISM 209 

justify the taunt of Quincy of Massachu- 
setts that the Republican party could not be 
kicked into a war. But there appeared on 
the stage a new sort of Republican. In the 
western counties of the older states and in 
the new territories beyond the mountains, 
the frontier element, once of small account 
in the country and wholly disregarded under 
the Federalists, was multiplying, forming 
communities and governments, where the 
pioneer habits had created a democracy 
that was distinctly pugnacious. Years of 
danger from Indians, of rivalry with white 
neighbors over land titles, of struggle with 
the wilderness, had produced a half-lawless 
and wholly self-assertive type of man, as 
democratic as Jefferson himself, but with a 
perfect willingness to fight and with a great 
respect for fighters. To these men the 
tameness with which the United States 
had submitted to insults and plundering 
was growing to be unendurable. Plain 
masculine anger began to obscure other 
considerations. 

These western men, moreover, had a 
special cause for indignation with England, 
which was ignored by the seacoast commu- 
nities, in the close connection which they 
firmly believed to exist between the British 
administration of upper Canada and the 
northwestern Indians. In the years after 



210 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

1809 the Indian question again began to 
assume a dangerous form. Settlers were 
coming close to the treaty lines, and, to 
satisfy their demands for the bottom lands 
along the Wabash River, Governor Harrison 
of Indiana Territory made an extensive 
series of land purchases from the small tribes 
on the coveted territory. 

But there now appeared two remarkable 
Indians, Tecumseh and his brother, the 
Prophet, of the Shawnee tribe, who saw 
in the occupation of the red men's hunting 
lands and the inroads of frontier corn whiskey 
the death of all their race. These leaders 
began to hold their own tribe together 
against the purchase of whiskey or the 
sale of lands; then, with wider vision, they 
tried to organize an alliance of all the 
northwestern Indians to prevent further 
white advance. They even went so far as to 
visit the southwestern Indians, Creeks and 
Cherokees, to induce them to join in the 
grand league. The very statesmanship 
involved in this vast scheme rendered it 
dangerous in the eyes of all Westerners, 
who were firmly convinced that the backing 
of this plan came from the British posts 
in Canada. There was, in reality, a good 
understanding between the Canadian officers 
and the Shawnee chiefs. In 1811 hostilities 
broke out at Tippecanoe, where Governor 



COMMERCIAL ANTAGONISM 211 

Harrison had a sharp battle with the 
Shawnees ; but Tecumseh exerted himself to 
restore peaceful relations, although the fron- 
tier was in great excitement. 

From the states of Kentucky, Ohio and 
Tennessee, and from the inner counties of 
the southern states there came to the first 
session of the Eleventh Congress, in Dec- 
ember, 1811, a group of young politicians, — 
Henry Clay, John Calhoun, Langdon Cheves, 
Felix Grundy, — who felt that the time for 
talk was at an end. Unless England im- 
mediately revoked its decrees, ceased im- 
pressing seamen and refrained from instiga- 
ting Indian plots there must be war. Assum- 
ing control of the House, with Clay in the 
Speaker's chair, they transformed the Re- 
publican party and the policy of the country. 
They pushed through measures for raising 
troops, arming ships and borrowing money. 
Congress rang with fiery speeches as month 
after month went by and the Perceval min- 
istry obstinately refused to stir from its 
commercial policy. 

Yet at this time, when a rising storm of 
anger was sweeping the United States govern- 
ment into war, the feeling of the English 
public was undergoing a change. By 1812 
the pretence that the Orders in Council were 
maintained for the purpose of starving out 
France was growing transparent when thou- 



m ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

sands of licenses, granted freely to British 
vessels, permitted a vast fleet to carry on 
the supposedly forbidden trade. Although 
Perceval and Canning still insisted in Parlia- 
ment that the orders were retaliatory, the 
fact was patent that their only serious 
effect was to cause the loss of the American 
trade and the American market. At the 
threat of war, the exporters of England, 
suffering severely from glutted markets, 
began a vigorous agitation against Per- 
ceval's policy and bombarded the ministry, 
through Henry Brougham as their mouth- 
piece, with petitions, memorials, and motions 
which put the Tories on the defensive. 
Speakers like Alexander Baring held up 
the system of Orders in Council as rid- 
dled with corruption, and only the per- 
sonal authority of Perceval and Castlereagh 
kept the majority firm. At the height of 
this contest Perceval was assassinated on 
May 11, 1812, and it was not until June 8 
that hope of a new coalition was abandoned 
and the Tory cabinet definitely reorganized 
under Lord Liverpool. Almost the first 
act of that ministry was to bow before the 
storm of petitions, criticisms and com- 
plaints and to announce on June 16 that 
they had decided to suspend the Orders. 
Thus the very contingency upon which 
Jefferson and Madison had counted came to 



COMMERCIAL ANTAGONISM 213 

pass. The British government, at the in- 
stance of the importing and manufacturing 
classes, yielded to the pressure of American 
commercial restrictions. It was true that 
the danger of war weighed far more, ap- 
parently, than the Non-intercourse Act, 
but had there been an Atlantic cable, or 
even a steam transit, at that time, or had 
the Liverpool ministry been formed a little 
earlier, the years 1807-1812 might have 
passed into history as a triumphant vindi- 
cation of Jefferson's theories. 

But it was too late. Madison, seeing 
apparently that his plans were a failure, fell 
in with the new majority, and after deliber- 
ate preparation sent a message to Congress 
in June, 1812, which was practically an invi- 
tation to declare war. In spite of the bitter 
opposition of all Federalists and many 
eastern Republicans, Congress, by the votes 
of the southern and western members, 
adopted a declaration of war on June 18, com- 
mitting the United States to a contest with 
the greatest naval power in the world on the 
grounds of the Orders in Council, the impress- 
ment of seamen, and the intrigues with the 
northwestern Indians. At the moment 
when Napoleon, invading Russia, began his 
last stroke for universal empire, the United 
States entered the game as his virtual ally. 
This was something the Federalists could 



214 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

not forgive. They returned to their homes, 
execrating the war as waged in behalf of 
the arch-enemy of God and man; as the 
result of a dirty pettifogging bit of trickery 
on the part of Napoleon. They denounced 
the ambitions of Clay and the Westerners, 
who predicted an easy conquest of Canada, 
as merely an expression of a pirate's desire 
to plunder England of its colonies, and 
they announced their purpose to do nothing 
to assist the unrighteous conflict. In their 
anger at Madison they were even willing to 
vote for DeWitt Clinton of New York, 
who ran for President in 1812 as an Inde- 
pendent Republican, and the coalition carried 
the electoral vote of every state north of 
Maryland except Pennsylvania and Vermont. 

When the news of the repeal of the Orders 
in Council crossed the Atlantic some efforts 
were made by the governor-general of 
Canada to arrange an armistice, hoping to 
prevent hostilities. But Madison does not 
seem to have seriously considered aband- 
oning the war, even though the original 
cause had been removed. Feeling the irre- 
sistible pressure of the southern and western 
Democrats behind him, he announced that 
the contest must go on until England should 
abandon the practice of impressment. So 
the last hope of peace disappeared. 

The war thus begun need never have 



WAR FOR "SAILORS' RIGHTS" 215 

taken place, had the Tory ministries of 
Portland or Percival cared to avert it. The 
United States only lashed itself into a war- 
like mood after repeated efforts to secure 
concessions, and after years of submission 
to British rough handling. During all this 
time, either Madison or Jefferson would 
gladly have accepted any sort of compromise 
which did not shut American vessels wholly 
out from some form of independent trade. 
But the enmity of the British shipowners 
and naval leaders and the traditional British 
commercial policy joined with contempt 
for the spiritless nation to prevent any such 
action until the fitting time had gone by. 



CHAPTER XI 

THE WAR FOR *' SAILORS* RIGHTS " AND WEST- 
WARD EXPANSION, 1812-1815 

The second war between the United 
States and the mother country, unlike the 
first, was scarcely more than a minor annoy- 
ance to the stronger party. In the years 
1812-1814 England was engaged in main- 
taining an army in Spain, in preying on 
French commerce by blockade and cruising, 
and in spending immense sums to subsidize 
the European nations in their final struggle 
against Napoleon. The whole military and 



216 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

financial strength of the country, the whole 
political and diplomatic interest were ab- 
sorbed in the tremendous European contest. 
Whig and Tory, landowner, manufacturer 
and laborer were united in the unbending 
determination to destroy the power of the 
Corsican. The Liverpool ministry contained 
little of talent, and no genius, but the mem- 
bers possessed certain traits which sufficed to 
render others unnecessary, namely, an un- 
shakable tenacity and steady hatred of the 
French. The whole country stood behind 
them on that score. 

Under the circumstances, the English, 
when obliged to fight the United States, were 
at liberty to send an overwhelming naval 
force to blockade or destroy American com- 
merce, but were in great straits to provide 
men to defend Canada. It was not until a 
full year after the declaration of war that 
any considerable force of regular troops could 
be collected and sent there, and not until 
two years that anything approaching a gen- 
uine army could be directed against America. 
The defence of Canada had to be left to the 
efforts of some few officers and men and such 
local levies as could be assembled. 

On the side of the United States the war 
was bound to take the form of an effort to 
capture all or part of Canada, for that was 
the only vulnerable British possession. On the 



WAR FOR "SAILORS' RIGHTS" 217 

sea the United States could hope at most to 
damage British commerce by the few national 
cruisers and by such privateers as the ship- 
owners of the country could send out. With- 
out a single ship-of-the-line and with only five 
frigates there existed no possibility of actu- 
ally fighting the British navy. But on land 
it seemed as though a country with a popu- 
lation of over seven millions ought to be able 
to raise armies of such size as to overrun, by 
mere numbers, the slender resources of 
Canada, and it was the confident expecta- 
tion of most of the western leaders that within 
a short time the whole region would be in 
American hands. "The acquisition of Canada 
this year," wrote Jefferson, "as far as the 
neighborhood of Quebec, will be a mere 
matter of marching, and will give us experi- 
ence for the attack on Halifax, the next and 
the final expulsion of England from the 
American continent." 

Unfortunately for the success of these 
dreams the policy of the Republican adminis- 
trations had been such as to set up insuper- 
able difficulties. The regular army, reduced 
under Jefferson's "passion for peace" to a 
bare minimum, was scattered in a few posts; 
the W^ar Department was without means for 
equipping, feeding and transporting bodies 
of troops; the whole mechanism of war ad- 
ministration had to be created. Further, the 



218 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

Secretary of the Army and nearly all the gen- 
erals were elderly men, veterans of the Revo- 
lutionary Army, who had lost whatever en- 
ergy they once possessed. The problem of war 
finances was rendered serious by the fact that 
revenue from the tariff, the sole important 
source of income, was sure to be cut off by 
the British naval power. The National Bank 
had been refused a recharter in 1811, and the 
government, democratic in its finances as in 
other matters, relied upon a hundred odd 
state banks of every degree of solvency for 
aid in carrying on financial operations. 

In addition the temper of the American 
people was exactly what it had been in 
colonial days. They regarded war as a 
matter to be carried on at the convenience 
of farmers and others, who were willing to 
serve in defence of their homes, but strongly 
objected to enlisting for any length of time. 
On the more pugnacious frontier the pre- 
vailing military ideal was that of the armed 
mob or crowd, — a body of fighters follow- 
ing a chosen leader against Indians. Every- 
where the elementary conceptions of obedi- 
ence and duty were unknown. The very 
men who wished war were unwilling to fight 
except on their own terms. 

Still more fatal to military eflSciency was 
the fact that the Federalists, and many of 
the northern Republicans, inhabiting the 



WAR FOR "SAILORS' RIGHTS" 219 

regions abutting on Canada were violently- 
opposed to the war, wished to see it fail and 
were firmly resolved to do nothing to aid the 
administration. The utmost the Federalists 
would do was to defend themselves if at- 
tacked, but they would do that on their own 
responsibility and not under federal orders. 

The only exception to this prevailing un- 
military condition was to be found in the 
navy, where, through cruising and through 
actual service against the Barbary corsairs, 
a genuinely trained body of officers and men 
had been created. Unable to do more than 
give a good account of themselves on the 
ocean in single combats, these officers found 
a chance on the northern lakes to display a 
fighting power and skill which is one of the 
few redeeming features of the war on the 
American side. 

In 1812 hostilities began with a feeble at- 
tempt on the part of the United States to 
invade Canada, an effort whose details are 
of interest only in showing how impossible 
it is for an essentially unmilitary people to 
improvise warfare. Congress had authorized 
a loan, the construction of vessels, and the 
enlistment of an army of 36,000 men; but 
the officers appointed to assemble a military 
force found themselves unable, after months 
of recruiting and working, to gather more 
than half that number of raw troops, with a 



220 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

fluctuating body of state militia. With these 
rudiments of a mihtary force, attempts to 
"invade" Canada were made in three direc- 
tions, — from Detroit, from the Niagara River 
and from the northern end of Lake Cham- 
plain. 

To meet these movements there were actu- 
ally less than 2300 British soldiers west of 
Montreal; but fortunately they were com- 
manded by Isaac Brock, an officer of daring 
and an aggressive temper. He at once entered 
into alliance with Tecumseh and the western 
Indians, and thus brought to the British 
assistance a force of hundreds of warriors 
along the Ohio and Kentucky frontier. 
While General Hull, with about 2000 troops, 
mainly volunteers from the West, marched 
under orders to Detroit and then, in July, 
invaded upper Canada, the outlying Ameri- 
can posts at Chicago and Mackinac were 
either captured or destroyed by the Indians. 
Brock, gathering a handful of men, marched 
against Hull, terrified him for the safety of 
his communications with the United States, 
forced the old man to retreat to Detroit, and 
finally, by advancing boldly against the slight 
fortifications of the post, frightened him into 
surrender. Hull had been set an impossible 
task, to conquer upper Canada with no sure 
means of getting reinforcements or supplies 
through a region swarming with Indians; but 



WAR FOR "SAILORS' RIGHTS" 221 

his conduct indicated no spark of pugnacity, 
and his surrender caused the loss of the entire 
northwest. Tecumseh and his warriors now 
advanced against the Kentucky, Indiana 
and Ohio frontiers, and the nameless horrors 
of Indian massacre and torture surged along 
the line of settlements. The frontiersmen 
flew to arms. General Harrison, with a com- 
mission from Kentucky, headed a large ex- 
pedition to regain lost ground, but he only 
succeeded in building forts in northwestern 
Ohio and waging a defensive war against the 
raids of Tecumseh and the British general. 
Proctor, Brock's successor. 

At Niagara no move was made until the 
late autumn, when two American generals 
in succession, — Van Rensselaer and Smyth, 
tried to lead a motley array of militia and 
regulars across the river. Brock met the 
first detachment and was killed in a skir- 
mish, but his men were none the less able to 
annihilate the main attack, on the brink of 
the river, while several thousand American 
militia, refusing, on constitutional grounds, 
to serve outside the jurisdiction of their 
state, watched safely from the eastern bank. 
The second effort in November, under 
General Smyth, proved an even worse fiasco. 
Meanwhile General Dearborn, the supreme 
commander, tried to invade near Lake 
Champlain, but, after he had marched his 



222 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

troops to the Canadian border, the militia re- 
fused to leave the soil of the United States, 
and so the campaign had to be abandoned. 
The military efforts of the United States 
were, as the Canadian military historian 
phrases it, "beneath criticism." 

The only redeeming feature of the year 
was the creditable record of the little Ameri- 
can navy and the success of the privateers, 
who rushed to prey upon British commerce. 
Upwards of two hundred British vessels were 
captured, while all but about seventy Ameri- 
can ships reached home safely. The British 
sent squadrons of cruisers, but were unable to 
begin a blockade. Their aim was to capture 
American men-of-war as rapidly as possible, 
to prevent their doing damage, so they un- 
hesitatingly attacked American vessels when- 
ever they met them, regardless of slight dif- 
ferences in size or gun power. The British 
sea-captain of the day had a hearty contempt 
for Americans, and never dreamed that their 
navy could be any more dangerous than the 
French. To the unlimited delight of the 
American pubhc, and the stupefaction of all 
England, ^ve American cruisers in succes- 
sion captured or sank five British in the 
autumn of 1812, utilizing superior weight 
of broadside and more accurate gunnery with 
merciless severity. These blows did no 
actual damage to a navy which comprised 



WAR FOR "SAILORS' RIGHTS" 223 

several hundred frigates and sloops, but the 
moral effect was tremendous. It had been 
proved that Americans, after all, could fight. 

In 1813 there was a change in administra- 
tive officers. Doctor Eustis was replaced in 
the War Department by John Armstrong, who 
had served in the Revolution, and William 
Jones of Philadelphia succeeded Paul Hamil- 
ton as Secretary of the Navy. Congress au- 
thorized more men, to the number of 58,000, 
and more ships, and voted more loans. Fi- 
nally, in the summer it actually was driven to 
impose internal taxes like those which, when 
laid by Federalists, had savored of tyranny. 

On the northern frontier renewed efforts 
were made to collect a real army, and, with 
late comprehension of the necessities of the 
case, naval officers were sent to build flotillas 
to control Erie, Ontario and Champlain. 
On their part the British ministry sent out 
a few more troops and officers to Canada, but 
relied this year chiefly upon a strict blockade, 
which was proclaimed first in December, 1812, 
and was extended, before the end of the year, 
to cover the entire coast, except New Eng- 
land. Ships of the line, frigates and sloops 
patrolled the entrances to all the seaports, 
terminating not only foreign but all coast- 
wise commerce. 

Things went little if any better for the 
United States. The army was on paper 



224 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

58,000, but the people of the north and west 
simply would not enlist. The utmost efforts 
at recruiting did not succeed in bringing one- 
half the nominal force into the field. The 
people would not take the war seriously and 
the administration was helpless. To make 
matters worse, not only did the northwest- 
ern frontier agonize under Indian warfare, 
but the southwest became involved, when 
in August, 1813, the Creek Indians, affected 
by Tecumseh's influence, rose and began a 
war in Tennessee and Georgia. For months 
Andrew Jackson, General of Tennessee mil- 
itia, with other local commanders, carried on 
an exhausting and murderous conflict in the 
swamps and woods of the southwest. The 
war was now assuming the character of the 
last stand of the Indians before the oncoming 
whites. 

In the northwest decisive blows were struck 
in this year by General Harrison and Com- 
mander Perry. The latter built a small fleet 
of boats, carrying in all fifty-four guns, and 
sailed out to contest the control of Lake 
Erie. Captain Barclay, the British com- 
mander, with scantier resources, constructed 
a weaker fleet, with sixty-three lighter guns, 
and gallantly awaited the Americans on Sep- 
tember 9. In a desperately fought battle, 
Perry's 'sloop, the Lawrence, was practically 
destroyed by the concentrated fire of the 



WAR FOR "SAILORS' RIGHTS" 225 

British, but the greater gun power of the 
Americans told, and the entire British flotilla 
was compelled to surrender. This enabled 
Harrison, who had been waiting for months 
in his fortifications, to advance and pursue 
Proctor into upper Canada. On October 5 
he brought him to action near the river 
Thames, winning a completed victory and kill- 
ing Tecumseh. The Americans then re- 
turned to Detroit, and the Indian war grad- 
ually simmered down, until in August, 1814, 
the leading tribes made peace. To the east- 
ward no such decisive action took place. Sir 
James Yeo and Commodore Chauncey, 
commanding the British and American ves- 
sels respectively on Lake Ontario, were each 
unwilling to risk a battle without a decisive 
superiority, and the result was that no serious 
engagement occurred. This rendered it im- 
possible for either side to attain any military 
success in that region, and so the year 1813 
records only a succession of raids, a species 
of activity in which the British proved much 
the more daring and efficient. During one 
of these affairs General Dearborn occupied 
the Canadian town of York, now Toronto, 
and burned the public buildings, — an act of 
needless destruction, for which the United 
States was destined to pay heavily. Further 
eastward General Wilkinson and General 
Hampton began a joint invasion of lower 



226 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

Canada, Wilkinson leading a force of over 
6000 down the St. Lawrence, Hampton ad- 
vancing with 4000 from Lake Champlain 
toward the same goal, Montreal. But at 
Chrystler's Farm, on November 11, the 
rearguard of Wilkinson's army suffered a 
thorough defeat at the hands of a small 
pursuing force, and Hampton underwent a 
similar repulse from an inferior body of 
French-Canadians under Colonel de Sala- 
berry, [at Chateauguy, on October 25. 
Finally Hampton, suspecting that Armstrong 
and Wilkinson intended in case of any 
failure to throw the blame on him, decided 
to withdraw, November 11, and Wilkinson 
followed. The whole invasion came to an 
inglorious conclusion. 

At sea the uniform success of American 
cruisers came to a stop, for, out of four naval 
duels, two were British victories, notably 
the taking of the unlucky Chesapeake by the 
Shannon. Only where privateers and sloops 
swept West Indian waters and hung about 
British convoys was there much to satisfy 
American feelings, and all the while the 
blockading squadrons cruised at their ease 
in Chesapeake and Delaware bays and Long 
Island Sound. The country was now sub- 
jected to increasing distress from the stop- 
page of all commerce, for not only was the 
federal government sorely pinched from 



WAR FOR "SAILORS' RIGHTS" 227 

loss of tariff revenue, but the New England 
towns suffered from starvation prices for 
food products, while in the middle and south- 
ern states grain was fed to cattle or allowed 
to rot. 

For the season of 1814 it was necessary 
again to try to build up armies, and now the 
time was growing short during which the 
United States could hope to draw advantage 
from the preoccupation of England in the 
European struggle. During the winter of 
1814 the final crushing of Napoleon took 
place, ending with his abdication and the 
restoration of the Bourbons. Simultaneously 
the British campaign in Spain was carried 
to its triumphant conclusion, and after April 
English armies had no further European oc- 
cupation. Unless peace were made, or unless 
the United States gained such advantages 
in Canada as to render the British ready to 
treat, it was practically certain that the 
summer would find the full power of the 
British army, as well as the navy, in a posi- 
tion to be directed against the American 
frontier and the American seacoast. 

Congress, however, did nothing new. It 
authorized a loan, raised the bounty for 
enlistments, voted a further increase of the 
army and adjourned. Armstrong, the Secre- 
tary of War, succeeded in replacing the worn- 
out veterans who had mismanaged the cam- 



^28 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARB 

paigns of 1812-1813 with fighting generals, 
younger men, such as Jacob Brown, Scott, 
Ripley and Jackson, the Indian fighter; but 
he could not induce men to enlist any more 
freely, nor did he show any ability in plan- 
ning operations. So events dragged on 
much as before. 

On Lake Ontario Chauncey and Yeo con- 
tinued their cautious policy, building vessels 
continually and never venturing out of port 
unless for the moment in overwhelming force. 
The result was that first one then the other 
controlled the lake; but they never met. 
The only serious fighting took place near 
Niagara, where General Brown, with a little 
force of 2600 men, tried to invade Canada, 
and was met first by General Riall, and later 
by General Drummond, with practically 
equal forces. Here the Americans actually 
fought, and fought hard, winning a slight 
success at Chippawa on July 5, and engaging 
in a drawn battle at Lundy's Lane on July 25. 
Later forced to take refuge in Fort Erie, 
Brown made a successful defence against 
Drummond and obliged him to abandon an 
effort at siege. Here, as in the naval com- 
bats, the military showing of the Americans 
was at last creditable, but the campaign was 
on too trivial a scale to produce any results. 
In the southwest this year Jackson pushed 
through his attack on the Creeks to a trium- 



WAR FOR "SAILORS' RIGHTS" 229 

phant conclusion, and in spite of mutinous 
militia and difficult forests compelled the 
Indians on August 9, 1814, to purchase peace 
by large cessions of land. 

By the middle of the summer, however, the 
British were ready to lay a heavy hand on 
the United States and punish the insolent 
country for its annoying attack in the rear. 
New England was now subjected to the 
blockade, and troops from Wellington's ir- 
resistible army were sent across, some to the 
squadron in the Chesapeake, others to 
Canada, and later still others in a well- 
equipped expedition to New Orleans to con- 
quer the mouth of the Mississippi. 

The Chesapeake squadron after raiding 
and provisioning itself at ihe expense of the 
Virginia and Maryland farmers, made a dash 
at Washington, sending boats up the Patux- 
ent and Potomac rivers and landing a body 
of about 2000 men. On August 24, with ab- 
surd ease, this force scattered in swift panic 
a hasty collection of militia and entered 
Washington, sending the President and 
cabinet flying into the country. In retalia- 
tion for the damage done at York, the British 
officers set fire to the capitol and other public 
buildings, before retreating swiftly to their 
ships. A similar attack on Baltimore, Septem- 
ber 11, was better met, and although the 
British routed a force of militia the attempt 



230 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

to take the city was abandoned. But the 
humiliation of the capture of Washington led 
to the downfall of Armstrong as Secretary 
of State, although not until after he had 
almost ruined another campaign. 

While the British were threatening Wash- 
ington, another force was gathering north of 
Lake Champlain, and a large frigate was be- 
ing built to secure command of that lake. 
By the end of August nearly 16,000 men, 
most of them from Wellington's regiments, 
were assembled to invade New York, prob- 
ably with the intention of securing the per- 
manent occupation of the northern part. In 
the face of this, Armstrong sent most of the 
American troops at Plattsburg on a useless 
march across New York state, leaving a bare 
handful under General McComb to meet 
the invasion. When Sir George Prevost, 
Governor-general of Canada, advanced to 
Plattsburg on September 6, he found noth- 
ing but militia and volunteers before him. 
Fortunately for the United States, Prevost 
was no fighter, and he declined to advance 
or attack unless he had a naval control of 
the lake. On September 11 the decisive 
contest took place. McDonough, the Ameri- 
can commander, with a small squadron, 
entirely defeated and captured the British 
flotilla under Downie. It was Lake Erie 
over again, with the difference that in this 



WAR FOR "SAILORS' RIGHTS" 231 

battle the American fleet was not superior to 
the British. It was a victory due to better 
planning and better gunnery, and it led to the 
immediate retreat of Prevost, who tamely 
abandoned the whole campaign, to the 
intense mortification of his oflBcers and men. 
The remaining expedition, under General 
Pakenham, comprising 16,000 Peninsular 
veterans, under convoy of a strong fleet, 
sailed to the Gulf of Mexico and advanced 
to capture New Orleans. General Andrew 
Jackson was at hand, and with him a mass of 
militia and frontiersmen. Driven by the 
furious energy of the Indian fighter, the 
Americans showed aggressiveness and cour- 
age in skirmishes and night attacks, and 
finally won an astounding victory on Janu- 
ary 8, 1815. On that day the British force 
tried to storm, by frontal attack, a line of in- 
trenchments armed with cannon and packed 
with riflemen. In twenty-five minutes their 
columns were so badly cut up by grapeshot 
and musketry that the whole attack was 
abandoned, after Pakenham himself had 
been killed. The expedition withdrew and 
sailing to Mobile, a town in Spanish territory, 
occupied by the Americans, retook it on 
February 11; but the main purpose of their 
invasion was foiled. 

In this year, while American land forces 
struggled to escape destruction, the naval 



232 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

vessels were for the most part shut in by the 
blockade. Occasional captures were still 
made in single combat, but British frigates 
were now under orders to refuse battle with 
the larger American vessels, and the captures 
by sloops were counterbalanced by the 
British capture of the frigate Essex by two 
antagonists in March, 1814. Practically the 
only extensive operations carried on were by 
American privateers, who now haunted the 
British Channel and captured merchantmen 
within sight of the English coasts. The 
irritation caused by these privateers was ex- 
cessive, and made British shipowners and 
merchants anxious for peace, but it had no 
effect on the military situation. England 
was not to be subdued by mere annoyance. 
Now, by the end of 1814, the time seemed 
to be at hand when the United States must 
submit to peace on such terms as England 
chose to dictate, or risk disruption and ruin. 
The administrative weaknesses of the coun- 
try culminated in actual financial bankruptcy, 
which was due in no small part to the fact 
that Federalist financiers and bankers, de- 
termining to do all the damage possible, 
steadily refused to subscribe to the loans or 
to give any assistance. The powerful New 
England capital was entirely withheld. The 
result was that the strain on the rest of the 
banks became too great, and after the cap- 



WAR FOR "SAILORS' RIGHTS" 233 

ture of Washington they all suspended 
specie payment, leaving the government only 
the notes of suspended banks, or its own de- 
preciated treasury notes for currency. All 
the coin in the country steadily flowed into 
the vaults of New England banks while the 
federal treasury was compelled, on Novem- 
ber 9, 1814, to admit its inability to pay in- 
terest on its loans. Congress met in the 
autumn and endeavored to remedy the situ- 
ation by chartering a bank, but under the 
general suspension of specie payments it was 
impossible to start one solvent from the be- 
ginning. When Congress authorized one 
without power to suspend specie payments, 
Madison vetoed it as useless. All that could 
be done was to issue more treasury notes. 
As for the army, a bill for compulsory service 
was brought in, showing the enormous change 
in Republican ideals; but it failed to pass. 
Congress seemed helpless. The American 
people would neither enlist for the war nor 
authorize their representatives to pass gen- 
uine war measures. 

And now the Federalists, controlling most 
of the New England states, felt that the time 
had come to insist on a termination of their 
grievances. Their governors had refused to 
allow militia to assist, their legislatures had 
done nothing to aid the war; their capitalists 
had declined to subscribe, and their farmers 



234 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

habitually sold provisions to the British 
over the Canadian boundary, actually sup- 
plying Sir George Prevost's army by con- 
tract. Now there met, at Hartford, on 
December 14, 1814, a convention of leading 
men, officially or unofficially representing 
the five New England states, who agreed 
upon a document which was intended to 
secure the special rights of their section. 
They demanded amendments to the con- 
stitution doing away with reckoning slaves 
as basis for congressional representation, 
providing for the partial distribution of 
government revenues among the states, 
prohibiting embargoes or commercial war- 
fare, or the election of successive presi- 
dents from the same state, and requiring a 
two-thirds vote of Congress to admit new 
states or declare war. This was meant for an 
ultimatum, and it was generally understood 
that if the federal government did not sub- 
mit to these terms the New England states 
would secede to rid themselves of what they 
considered the intolerable oppression of Vir- 
ginian misgovernment. 

Such was the state of things in the win- 
ter of 1815. The administration of Madi- 
son had utterly failed to secure any of the 
ends of the war, to inflict punishment on 
Great Britain or to conquer Canada. It 
had also utterly failed to maintain financial 



WAR FOR "SAILORS' RIGHTS*' 235 

solvency, to enlist an army, to create a navy 
capable of keeping the sea, or to prevent a 
movement in New England which seemed to 
be on the verge of breaking the country into 
pieces. But to lay this miserable failure, — 
for such only can it be called, — to the per- 
sonal discredit of Jefferson and Madison is 
unfair, for it was only the repetition under 
new governmental conditions of the old 
traditional colonial method of carrying on 
war as a local matter. The French and In- 
dian War, the Revolution and the War of 
1812, repeated in different generations the 
same tale of amateur warfare; of the occa- 
sional success and usual worthlessness of the 
militia, the same administrative ineflSciency 
and the same financial breakdown. Without 
authority and obedience there can be carried 
on no real war, and authority and obedience 
were no more known and no better appre- 
ciated in 1812 than they had been in the 
days of Washington. Jefferson, Madison 
and their party had gone with the current of 
American tradition; that was their only 
fault. 



S36 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 
CHAPTER XII 

THE END OF THE YEARS OF ANTAGONISM, 

1812-1815 

When the American war began the English 
showed a tendency to blame the Tory ad- 
ministration for permitting it to take place, 
but the chief feeling, after all, was one of 
annoyance at Madison and his party for 
having decided to give their assistance to 
Napoleon at the crisis of his career. The 
intercourse between Englishmen and New 
England Federalists had given English society 
its understanding of American politics and 
colored its natural irritation toward the Re- 
publican administration with something of 
the deeper venom of the outraged New Eng- 
landers, who saw in Jefferson and his succes- 
sors a race of half-Jacobins. During 1812 
and 1813, accordingly, newspapers and min- 
isterial speakers, when they referred to the 
contest, generally spoke of the necessity of 
chastising an impudent and presumptuous 
antagonist. A friendly party such as had 
defended the colonists during the Revolution 
no longer existed, for the Whigs, however 
antagonistic to the Liverpool ministry, were 
fully as firmly committed to maintaining 
British naval and commercial supremacy. 

England's chief continental ally, however. 



END OF THE ANTAGONISM 237 

the Czar Alexander, considered the American 
war an unfortunate blunder, and, as early as 
September, 1812, he offered his mediation 
through young John Quincy Adams, min- 
ister at St. Petersburg. The news reached 
America in March, 1813, and Madison 
revealed his willingness to withdraw from a 
contest, already shown to be unprofitable, 
by immediately accepting and nominating 
Adams,^with Bayard and Gallatin, to serve as 
peace commissioners. Without waiting to 
hear from England, these envoys started for 
Russia, but reached there only to meet an 
official refusal on the part of England, dated 
July 5, 1813. The Liverpool ministry did 
notlwish to have the American war brought 
within the range of European consideration, 
since its settlement under such circumstances 
might raise questions of neutral rights which 
would be safer out of the hands of a Czar 
whose ^predecessors had framed armed neu- 
tralities in 1780 and 1801. Accordingly the 
British government intimated politely that 
it would be willing to deal directly with the 
United States, and thus waved the unwel- 
come Russian mediation aside. Madison 
accepted this offer in March, 1814, but al- 
though the American commissioners endeav- 
ored through Alexander Baring, their friend 
and defender in Parliament, to get the 
British government to appoint a time and 



238 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

place for meeting, they encountered con- 
tinued delays. 

A considerable element in the Tory party 
felt that the time had come to inflict a severe 
punishment upon the United States, and 
newspapers and speakers of that connection 
announced freely that only by large conces- 
sions of territory could the contemptible 
republic purchase peace. When the ministry 
finally sent commissioners to Ghent, August 
8, 1814, it was not with any expectation of 
coming to a prompt agreement, but merely 
to "amuse" the Americans while the various 
expeditions then under way took Washing- 
ton and Baltimore, occupied northern New 
York and captured New Orleans. It was 
generally expected that a few months would 
find large portions of the United States in 
British possession, as was in fact the sea- 
coast of Maine, east of Penobscot Bay, after 
September first. 

The instructions to the British peace 
commissioners were based on the uti pos- 
sedetisy as the British government intended it 
to be by the end of the year, when they ex- 
pected to hold half of Maine, the northern 
parts of New York, New Hampshire and 
Vermont, the northwestern post of Mackin- 
nac, and possibly New Orleans and Mobile. 
In addition there was to be an Indian terri- 
tory established under British guarantee 



END OF THE ANTAGONISM 239 

west of the old treaty line of 1795, and all 
American fishing rights were to be termi- 
nated.^ On the other side, the American in- 
structions, while hinting that England would 
do well to cede Canada, made the abandon- 
ment of the alleged right of impressments by 
England a sine qua non. Clearly no agree- 
ment between such points of view was pos- 
sible, and the outcome of the negotiation was 
bound to depend on the course of events in 
the United States. The first interviews re- 
sulted in revealing that part of the British in- 
structions related to the Indian territory with 
intimations of coming demands for territorial 
cessions. This the Americans instantly re- 
jected on August 25, and the negotiation 
came to a standstill for several weeks. 

The three British negotiators, Admiral 
Gambier, Henry Goulburn and Doctor Adams 
were men of slight political or personal au- 
thority, and their part consisted chiefly in 
repeating their instructions and referring 
American replies back to Lord Castlereagh, 
the foreign secretary, or to Lord Bathurst, 
who acted as his substitute while he attended 
the Congress of Vienna. The American com- 
missioners, including the three original ones, 
Adams, Bayard and Gallatin, to whom Clay 
and Russell of Massachusetts were now added, 
clearly understood the situation, and had 
ahready warned Madison that an insistence 



240 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

on the abandonment of impressments would 
result in the failure to secure any treaty. 
In October, 1814, a despatch yielded this 
point and left the negotiators to make the 
best fight they could, unhampered by posi- 
tive instructions. Undoubtedly they would 
have been compelled to submit to hard terms, 
in spite of their personal ability, which stood 
exceedingly high, had not news of the repulse 
at Baltimore, of the treaty of July, 1814, by 
which the northwestern Indians agreed to 
fight the English, and, on October 17, of the 
retreat of Sir George Prevost after the defeat 
of Plattsburg, come in to change the situation. 
Between August and October little had 
been accomplished, during a slow interchange 
of notes, beyond a withdrawal by the British 
of their demand for an Indian territory and 
an acceptance, in its place, of an agreement 
to include the Indians in a general peace. 
Then the cabinet, seeing that after Prevost's 
retreat they could no longer claim the terri- 
tory outlined in the first instructions, au- 
thorized the negotiators to demand only 
Mackinac and Niagara, with a right of way 
across Maine. But to this the Americans, 
encouraged by the news from Plattsburg, re- 
plied on October 23, refusing to treat on the 
uti possedetis, or on any terms but the status 
quo ante. This brought the Tory govern- 
ment face to face with the question whether 



END OF THE ANTAGONISM 241 

the war was to be continued another year 
for the purpose of conquering a frontier for 
Canada; and before the prospect of con- 
tinued war taxation, annoyance from priva- 
teers and a doubtful outcome, they hesitated. 
Turning to Wellington for a decision, they 
asked him whether he would accept the 
command in America for the purpose of 
conquering a peace. His reply showed little 
interest or desire to go, although he seemed 
confident of success; but he observed that, on 
the basis of the military situation, they had 
no right to demand any territorial cessions. 

The ministry then, November 18, definitely 
abandoned the claim for compensation and 
accepted as a basis for discussion a plan sub- 
mitted by the American commissioners. 
In the preparation of this a sharp quarrel had 
broken out between Clay, who insisted on 
terminating the British right to navigate the 
Mississippi, and Adams, who demanded the 
retention of the American right to fish in 
Canadian waters. Gallatin pointed out that 
the two privileges stood together, and with 
great difficulty he induced the two men to 
agree to the omission of both matters from 
the treaty, although Clay refused until the 
last to sign. So the commission presented a 
united front in offering to renew both rights 
or postpone them for discussion, and the 
British commissioners finally accepted the 



242 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

last alternative. The treaty was then signed, 
December 24, 1814, as a simple cessation of 
hostilities. Not a word related to any of 
the numerous causes of the war. Impress- 
ments, blockades, orders in council, the In- 
dian relations, the West Indian trade rights, 
— all were abandoned. So far as the United 
States was concerned the treaty was an 
acknowledgment of defeat, a recognition 
that the war was a failure. 

In view of the hopes of Canadian gains the 
treaty was denounced in England by the op- 
position journals and many of those most an- 
tagonistic to America as a cowardly surrender. 
But it was none the less heartily accepted 
by both peoples and both governments. It 
reached the United States February 11, was 
sent to the Senate on February 15, and rati- 
fied unanimously the next day. There still 
remained various vessels at sea, and so the 
winter of 1815 saw not only the amazing 
victory of Jackson at New Orleans, but also 
several naval actions, in which the United 
States frigate President was taken by a 
squadron of British blockaders, two Ameri- 
can sloops in duels took two British smaller 
vessels, and the American Constitution, in 
a night action, captured, together, two Brit- 
ish sloops. Then the news spread, and peace 
finally arrived in fact. 

In England the whole affair was quickly 



END OF THE ANTAGONISM 243 

forgotten in the tremendous excitement 
caused by the return of Napoleon from Elba, 
the uprising of Europe and the dramatic 
meeting of the two great captains, Welling- 
ton and Napoleon, in the Waterloo campaign. 
By the time that the Empire had finally col- 
lapsed, the story of the American war with 
its maritime losses and scanty land triumphs 
was an old one, and the British exporters, 
rushing to regain their former markets, were 
happy in the prospect of the reopening of 
American ports. By October trade relations 
were reestablished and the solid intercourse 
of the two countries was under way. 

In America all disgraces and defeats were 
forgotten in the memories of New Orleans, 
Plattsburg and Chippawa, and the people at 
large, willing to forgive all its failures to the 
Republican administration, resumed with 
entire contentment the occupations of peace. 
The war fabric melted like a cloud, armies 
were disbanded, vessels were called home, 
credit rose, prices sprang upward, importa- 
tions swelled, exportation began. 

In truth, the time of antagonism was at 
an end, for with the European peace of 1814 
the immediate cause for irritation was re- 
moved, never to return. The whole struc- 
ture of blockades, orders in council, seizures 
and restrictions upon neutrals vanished; 
the necessity for British impressments ceased 



244 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

to exist; and, since France never again came 
into hostility with England, none of these 
grievances was revived. But in a broader 
way the year 1815 and the decades following 
marked the end of national hostility, for the 
fundamental antagonisms which, since 1763, 
had repeatedly brought about irritation and 
conflict, began after this time to die out. 

In the first place the defeat of the Indians 
in the war allowed the people of the United 
States to advance unchecked into the north- 
west and southwest, filling] the old Indian 
lands and rendering any continuation of the 
restrictive diplomacy on the part of England 
for the benefit of Canadian fur traders 
patently futile. The war was no sooner 
ended than roads, trails and rivers swarmed 
with westward-moving emigrants, and within 
a year the territory of Indiana, which the 
British commissioners at Ghent had wished 
to establish as an Indian reserve, was fram- 
ing a state constitution. In 1819 Illinois 
followed. As though to recognize the end of 
this rivalry. Great Britain agreed in 1818 to 
a convention by which the naval force on the 
Great Lakes was limited to one small gun- 
boat of each power on Champlain and On- 
tario, and two on the upper lakes, an arrange- 
ment of immense value to both Canada and 
the United States. 

Still more important, the old-time com- 



END OF THE ANTAGONISM 245 

mercial antagonism was destined to disap- 
pear in a few years after the close of the 
war. At first England clung to the time- 
honored West Indian policy, and, when in 
1815 the two countries adjusted their com- 
mercial relations, American vessels were still 
excluded, although given the right to trade 
directly with the East Indies. But already 
the new economic thought, which regarded 
competition and reciprocal trade as the ideal, 
instead of legal discriminations and universal 
protectionism, was gaining ground, as Eng- 
land became more and more the manufactur- 
ing centre of the world. Under Huskisson, 
in 1825, reciprocity was definitely substituted 
for exclusion, and a few years later, under Peel 
and Russell, and within the lifetime of men 
who had maintained the Orders in Council, 
the whole elaborate system of laws backed 
by the logic of Lord Sheffield and James 
Stephen was cast away and fell into for- 
gotten disrepute. Thus ended the possibility 
of further commercial antagonism. 

In America, it should be added, the rush 
of settlers into the West and the starting of 
manufactures served, within a few years 
from the end of the War of 1812, to alter 
largely the former dependence of the United 
States upon foreign commerce. By the time 
that England was ready to abandon its re- 
strictive policy, the United States was be- 



246 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

ginning to be a manufacturing nation with 
its chief wealth in its great internal trade, 
and the ancient interest in the West Indies 
was fast falling into insignificance. The 
same men who raged against the Jay treaty 
and the Orders in Council lived to forget that 
they had ever considered the West India 
trade important. So on both sides the end of 
commercial antagonism was soon to follow 
on the Treaty of Ghent. 

Finally, and more slowly, the original 
political and social antagonism ceased to be 
active, and ultimately died out. So far as 
the United States was concerned, the change 
wa3 scarcely visible until three-quarters of a 
century after the Treaty of Ghent. The 
temper of the American people, formed by 
Revolutionary traditions and nourished on 
memories of battles and injuries, remained 
steadily antagonistic toward England, and 
the triumph of western social ideals served to 
emphasize the distinction between the Ameri- 
can democrat and the British aristocrat, 
until dislike became a tradition and a politi- 
cal and literary convention. But the empti- 
ness of this nominal national hatred of John 
Bull was shown in 1898, when, at the first 
distinct sign of friendliness on the part of the 
British government and people, the whole 
American anglophobia vanished and the 
people of the continent realized that the time 



END OF THE ANTAGONISM 247 

had come for a recognition of the essential 
and normal harmony of the ancient enemies. 
In England the change began somewhat 
earlier, for within less than a generation 
after the Treaty of Ghent the exclusive Tory 
control collapsed, and the Revolution of 1832 
gave the middle classes a share of political 
power. A few years later the radicals, rep- 
resenting the workingmen, became a dis- 
tinct force in Parliament, and to middle class 
and radicals there was nothing abhorrent 
in the American Republic. Aristocratic 
society continued of course, as in the eight- 
eenth century, to regard the United States 
with scant respect, and those members of 
the upper middle classes who took their 
social tone fron the aristocracy commonly 
reflected their prejudices. But the lower 
elements in England, — ^men whose relatives 
emigrated steadily to the western land of 
promise, — felt a genuine sympathy and 
interest in the success of the great demo- 
cratic experiment, a sympathy which was 
far deeper and more effective than had been 
that of the eighteenth-century Whigs. From 
the moment that these classes made their 
weight felt in government, the time was at 
hand when the old social antagonism was 
to die out, and with it the deep political 
antipathy which, since the days of 1793, had 
tinged the official British opinion of a demo- 



248 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WARS 

cratic state. The last evidence of the Tory 
point of view came when, in 1861, the Ameri- 
can Civil War brought out the unconcealed 
aversion of the British nobility and aristoc- 
racy for the northern democracy; but on 
this occasion the equally unconcealed sense of 
political and social sympathy manifested by 
the British middle and working classes served 
to prevent any danger to the United States 
and to keep England from aiding in the dis- 
ruption of the Union. Thus the Treaty of 
Ghent, marking the removal of immediate 
causes of irritation, was the beginning of a 
period in which the underlying elements of 
antagonism between England and the United 
States were definitely to cease. 



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 



The references to the epoch covered in this volume may 
be rather sharply divided into those which deal with the 
years before 1783, and those which relate to the subsequent 
period. In the first group there are both English and Ameri- 
can works of high excellence, but in the second there are practi- 
cally none but American authorities, owing to the preoccupa- 
tion of all English writers with the enormously more dramatic 
and important French revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, 
or with the events of parliamentary politics. 

For the years 1763-1783 the best American history is E. 
Channing, History of the United States, vol. iii (1912), dis- 
tinctly independent, thorough and impartial. S. G. Fisher, 
The Struggle for American Independence, 2 vols. (1908), is 
cynically critical and unconventional. Three volumes of the 
American Nation series, — G. E. Howard, Preliminaries of the 
Revolution: C. H. Van Tyne, The American Revolution; and 
A. C. McLaughlin, The Confederation and the Constitution 
(1905), are equally scholarly and less detailed. The older 
American works, exhibiting the traditional "patriotic" view, 
are best represented by J. Fiske, American Revolution, 2 vols. 
(1891); and G. Bancroft, History of the United States, 6 vols, 
(ed. 1883-1885). On the English side the most valuable 
study is in W. E. H. Lecky, England in the XVIII Century, 
vol. iii, iv (1878), a penetrating and impartial analysis. The 
English Whig view appears in Sir G. O. Trevelyan, The 
American Revolution, 3 vols. (1899-1907); Lord Mahon, 
England in the Eighteenth Century, vols, v-vii (1853-1854); 
and M. Marks, England and America, 2 vols. (1907), while 
W. Hunt, Political History, 1760-1801 (1905), alone of recent 
writers, presents a Tory version of events. 

Special works of value are C. Stedman, The' American War, 
2 vols. (1794), the authoritative English contemporary ac- 
count of military events, and, among recent studies, J. W. 
Fortescue, History of the British Army, vol. iii (1902), which 
should be compared with H. B. Carrington, Battles of the 
Revolution (1876); E. McCrady, South Carolina in the Revo- 
lution, 2 vols. (1901-2); E. J. Lowell, The Hessians in the 
Revolution (1884); J. B. Perkins, France in the American 



250 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 

Revolution (1911); C. H. VanTyne, The Loyalists (1902), and 
W. Hertz, The Old Colonial System (1905). Of especial value 
are the destructive criticisms in C. F. Adams, Studies Mili- 
tary and Diplomatic (1911). The authoritative treatment of 
naval history is found in A. T. IVIahan, Influence of Sea Power 
(1890), and in the chapter by the same writer in W. L. 
Clowes, History of the Royal Navy, vol. iii, iv (1898-1899). 

Among leading biographies are those of Washington by 
H. C. Lodge (2 vols. 1890), by W. C. Ford (2 vols. 1900), 
and by Gen. B. T. Johnson (1894); of Franklin by J. Par- 
ton (2 vols. 1864), by J. Bigelow (3 vols. 1874), and by J. T. 
Morse (1889); of Henry by M. C. Tyler (1887); of Samuel 
Adams by J. K. Hosmer (1885); of Robert Morris by E. P. 
Oberholzer (1903), and of Steuben by F. Kapp (1859). On 
the English side the Memoirs of Horace Walpole (1848); the 
Correspondence of George III with Lord North, ed. by W. B. 
DoNTSTE (1867), are valuable and interesting, and some material 
may be found in the lives of Burke by T. McKnight (2 vols. 
1858); of Shelburne by E. G. Fitzmaurice (2 vols. 1875); of 
Chatham[by F. Harrison (1905) and A. Von Ruville (3 vols. 
1907); and of Fox by Lord John Russell (3 vols. 1859). 
The biographies of two governors of Massachusetts, C. A. 
PowNALL, Thomas Poumall (1908), and J. K. Hosmer, Thomas 
Hutchinsom(1896), are of special value as presenting the colonial 
Tory viewpoint. 

For the period after 1783 the best reference and the only 
one which attempts to trace in detail the motives of English 
as well as American statesmen is Henry Adams, History of 
the United States, 9 vols. (1891). It is impartially critical, in 
a style of sustained and caustic vivacity. Almost equally 
valuable is A. T. Mahan, Sea Power in Relation to the War of 
1812, 2 vols. (1905) which contains the only sympathetic 
analysis of British naval and commercial policy, 1783-1812, 
beside being the authoritative work on naval happenings. 
The standard American works are J. Schouler, History of 
the United States, vols, i, ii (1882); J. B. McMaster, 
History of the People of the United States, vols, i-iv (1883- 
1895); R. Hildreth, History of the United States, vol. ii-vi 
(1849-1852), and three volumes of the American Nation 
Series, J. S. Bassett, The Federalist System; E. Channing, 
The Jeffersonian System, and K. C. Babcock, Rise of American 
Nationality (1906). On the English side there is practically 
nothing in the general histories beyond a chapter on American 
relations in A. Alison, Modern Europe, vol. iv (1848), which 
accurately represents the extreme Tory contempt for the 
United States but has no other merit. Works on Canadian 



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 251 

history fill this gap to a certain extent, such as W. Kings- 
ford, History of Canada, vol. viii (1895). 

Beside the work of Mahan (as above) the War of 1812 is 
dealt with by W. James, Naval History of Great Britain, vols, 
v-vi. (1823), a work of accuracy as to British facts but of 
violent anti- American temper; and on the other side by J. F. 
Cooper, Naval History (1856), and T. Roosevelt, Naval War 
of 1812 (1883). Sundry special works dealing with economic 
and social questions involved in international relations are T. 
Roosevelt, Winning of the West, 4 vols. (1899-1902); W. 
Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and Commerce, vol. 
iii (1893), and W. Smart, Economic Annals of the Nineteenth 
Century (1910). Biographical material is to be found, in the 
lives of Washington (as above) ; of Jefferson by J. Schouler, 
(1897), and J. T. Morse (1883); of HamUton by J, T. 
Morse (1882), and F. S. Oliver (1907); of Gallatin by H. 
Adams (1879); of Madison by G. Hunt, (1903); of Josiah 
Quincy by E. Quincy (1869). There is some biographical 
material to be found in Brougham's Life and Times of Lord 
Brougham, vol. iii (1872), and in S. Walpole, Life of Spencer 
Perceval, 2 vols. (1874), but for the most part the English ver- 
sion of relations with America after 1783 is still to be dis- 
covered only in the contemporary sources such as the Parlia- 
mentary History and Debates, the Annual Register, and the 
partly published papers of such leaders as Pitt, Fox, Grenville, 
Canning, Castlereagh and Perceval. 

Documents and other contemporary material for the whole 
period may be conveniently found in W. MacDonald, Select 
Charters (1904) and Select Documents (1898); in G. Callen- 
der, Economic History of the United States (1909), and A. B. 
Hart, American History told by Contemporaries, vols, ii, iii 
(1898, 1901). 



INDEX 



Adams, John, in Revolution, 48, 57, 
63, 71, 73, 118-124; after 1783, 
142, 147, 155, 173-180 

Adams, John Quincy, 237-241 

Adams, Samuel, 32, 41, 50, 57, 63, 
78, 131, 143 

Adet, P. A., 172, 173 

Administrative weakness, 78, 80, 
88, 131, 217, 232 

Alexander I, 189, 236, 237 

Alien and Sedition Acts, 176-180 

Antagonism, of England and Amer- 
ica, 9-28, 243-248 

Anti-Federalists, 141, 143, 147 

Armstrong, John, 223-230 

Army, American, 64, 79, 80, 84-87, 
107, 134, 177, 218-223, 228, 233 

Army, British, 76, 216, 227, 230, 
231 

Arnold, Benedict, 67, 81, 85, 104 

Baltimore, 84, 229, 238, 240 

Bank of the United States, 144, 146, 

183, 218 
Banks, State, 218, 232, 233 
Barbary States, 184 
Baring, Alexander, 212, 237 
Bayard, James A., 237, 239 
Beaumarchais, Caron de, 94 
Bedford, Duke of, 46, 60 
Bills of Credit, 30, 31, 64, 106, 133, 

137, 138 
Blockade, in Revolution, 95, 108; 

in 1812, 216, 223, 226, 229 
Board of Trade, 23, 26, 27, 31, 43 
Bonaparte, Napoleon, American re- 
lations, 179, 184-186; and Ameri- 
can commerce, 189-197, 202-208, 
213-215, 227, 236, 243 
Boston, 27, 46-58, 61-66 
Boundaries, 118, 121, 122, 156 
Brock, General Isaac, 220, 221 
Brougham, Henry, 212 
Brown, General Jacob, 228 
Bunker Hill, Battle of, 64, 65, 78, 83 
Burgoyne, General John, 89-95, 

113, 114 
Burke, Edmund, 52, 60, 68, 73, 74, 

96, 115, 161, 165 
Burr, Aaron, 179, 180, 185 



Camden, Battle of, 102 
Canada, British policy in, 29, 54, 
67. 72, 81, 85, 100, 118, 122, 127, 

154, 157, 158, 200, 209, 210; de- 
fence of, 214-229, 239, 241, 244 

Canning, George, 197, 201, 204, 207, 

212 
Carleton, General Guy, 81, 85, 157 
Carolina, North, 67, 104, 136, 141 
Carolina, South, 21, 23, 102, 103, 
h 109, 160 
Champlain, Lake, in Revolution, 62, 

67, 81, 85, 89; in 1812-1815, 214r- 

229; 239, 241, 244 
Charleston, South Carolina, 102, 

110, 112, 126, 160 
Chauncey, Commodore Isaac, 225, 

228 
Chesapeake Bay, 89, 109-112, 226, 

229 
Church of England, 17, 18 
Clark, George Rogers, 100, 105 
Clay, Henry, 211, 214, 239, 241 
Clinton, DeWitt, 214 
Clinton, George, 147, 169 
Clinton, Sir Henry, 91, 99-103, 108- 

113 
Colonies, Sentiment of, 10, 14-20, 

27, 31-33, 41-45, 49, 56, 74 
Commerce, American, before Inde- 
pendence, 21, 23-25, 31, 80, 95, 

108; after 1783, 132, 133, 149, 

155, 163, 167, 190-194; during 
war of 1812, 222, 226, 243, 245 

Commercial Policy, British, 20-25, 

154-161, 166, 192-204, 236, 245 
Commons, House of, 10, 11, 37, 38, 

41,45, 60, 97, 115, 116, 153 
Conciliatory Propositions, 61, 64, 

96-98 
Concord, Battle of, 61, 78 
Confederation, Articles of, 105, 

129-135 
Congress, Continental, 66, 67, 60, 

63, 64, 70, 71, 78, 80, 84, 87-93, 

97, 104, 105, 118, 130 
Congress of the Confederation, 106, 

124, 126, 130-138, 141, 157 
Congress, United States, under 

Federalists, 140-145, 155, 163, 



252 



INDEX 



253 



172, 175, 177; under Republicans, 
182, 186, 187, 195, 199-208, 211, 
213, 219,f223, 227, 233, 234 
Congresses, Provincial, 58, 62, 87 
Connecticut, 100, 134, 136, 139 
Constitution, United States, 139- 

141, 159, 180, 183, 234 
Constitutions, State, 87, 130 
Contempt, of English for Ameri- 
cans, 52, 53, 151-155, 197, 204, 
208, 215, 222, 236, 247, 248 
Convention, Annapolis, 137; Phil- 
adelphia, 139-141 
Cornwallis, Lord, 86, 102-113 
Corruption, in British government, 

10-12, 35, 47, 115 
Crown, British, 11, 15, 16, 42, 115 
Customs, Commissioners of, 41, 46, 
£4 

Dartmouth, Earl of, 47, 69 
Debts, British, 123, 158, 166 
Declaration of Independence, 71, 98 
Decrees, of Napoleon, 196, 197, 202- 

208 
De Grasse, Admiral, 110-112, 125 
Delaware, 15, 139 
Delaware Bay, 89-91, 226 
D'Estaing, Admiral, 99-101 
Detroit, 100, 220, 225 
Dickinson, John, 42, 50, 57, 64, 105 
Directorate, French, 171-173, 184 

East India Company, 9, 48, 50-53 
Elections, Presidential, 142, 147, 

173, 178-181, 187, 201, 214 
Embargo, 164, 199-203 
England, Sentiment of, toward 
Colonies, 19, 26, 27, 31, 34, 37, 
44-46, 50-53, 60; during Revo- 
lution, 70-75, 114, 125, 128; after 
1783, 148-152, 159-170, 175, 176, 
181, 189-192; during French wars, 
194-208,211-215; in war of 1812, 
215, 216, 227, 232, 244 
Erie, Lake, Battle of, 225 
Erskine, David M., 204, 205 
Excise, 145, 164, 169, 183, 223 

Fauchet, J. A., 162, 172 

Federalist Party, origin, 141-148; 
in power, 161, 164, 167-170, 174- 
181; in opposition, 183, 187, 200- 
206, 213, 214, 218-223, 232-236 

Finances, of Revolution, 16, 64, 106, 
123, 133-135; under Federalists, 
144-146; under Republicans, 182, 
191, 218-220, 227, 232, 233 

Fisheries, 121, 122, 239, 241 



Florida, 29, 99, 122, 125, 166, 194 

Fox, Charles James, 96, 115-121, 
152, 152, 165, 193 

France, in American Revolution, 93, 
94, 97, 108, 117-122, 126, 155, 
156; Revolution in, 159-163, 166; 
relations with United States, 168- 
179, 184-186; under Napoleon, 
189-194, 197, 201-204, 244 

Franklin, Benjamin, in England, 38, 
44, 51, 62, 64; in France, 71, 83, 
93, 94, 106, 118-124 

Fur Trade, 157, 158, 244 

Gage, General Thomas, 58, 61, 64- 

66 
Gallatin, Albert, 182, 237, 239, 241 
Gates, General Horatio, 79, 89, 91, 

92, 102 
Genet, Edmond C, 161-162 
George III, accession of, 12, 34-40; 

opposes Americans, 45, 47, 67, 60, 

63, 71, 74, 77, 96-99; in English 

politics, 115, 116, 119, 128, 152, 

153, 197 
Georgia, 51, 60, 101 
Germaine, Lord George, 53, 75, 77, 

88, 114 
Ghent, Negotiations, 238-244 
Gibraltar, 99, 114, 122, 125 
Governors, Colonial, 15-17, 26, 27, 

44, 62, 71 
Grafton, Duke of, 39, 40, 47 
Great Lakes, 122, 158, 223-228, 244 
Greene, General Nathaniel, 79, 84, 

103, 104, 108 
Grenville, George, 28, 30, 35, 44, 53 
Grenville, William, Lord, 165, 171, 

193, 198, 203 
Guilford Court House, Battle of, 108 

Hamilton, Alexander, 132, 134, 144- 

147, 162, 163, 168, 177, 179, 188 
Harrison, General W. H., 210, 211, 

221-225 
Hartford Convention, 234 
Hatred, American, for England, 101, 

160, 209, 246 
Henry, Patrick, 32, 42, 60, 67, 78, 

131, 143 J 
Hessians, 68, 69, 82, 86, 92 
Hillsborough, Lord, 43-53 
Howe, Admiral, 82, 83, 100, 114 
Howe, General Sir William, 82-92, 

95, 113, 114 
Hudson River, 83, 84, 89, 91, 100 
Hull, General William, 220 
Hutchinson, Governor Thomas, 49, 

51 



254 



INDEX 



Impressments, 193-199, 205, 213, 

214, 239-243 
Indiana, 210, 221, 244 

Indians, of Northwest, British 
policy toward, 29, 100, 157, 158, 
164, 167; in war of 1812, 209- 
213, 218-225, 238-240, 244 

Indians, Southwestern, 167, 167, 
210, 224, 228, 229 

Jackson, Andrew, 224, 228, 231, 242 
Jay, John, 42, 57, 118. 120-124, 156, 

157, 164-167, 171 
Jefferson, Thomas, in Revolution, 
71, 78; Republican leader, 143- 
147, 155, 161, 169-173, 178, 180; 
President, 181-188, 193-196, 199- 
203, 209, 212-217, 235, 236 

Kentucky, 157, 178, 185, 211, 220, 

221 
King's Friends, 39, 43, 153 
King's Mountain, Battle of, 103 

Lafayette, Marquis de, 102 
Lee, General Charles, 79, 84, 99 
Lee, Richard Henry, 57, 143 
Legislatures, of colonies, 15, 16, 26, 
30, 32, 41-45, 71, 74; of states, 
87, 130-136, 145, 158, 201 
Livingston, Robert R., 124, 186 
Long Island, Battle of, 82, 83 
Louis XVI, 93, 94, 155 
Louisiana, 184-186, 194 
Loyalty, English and American, 18- 
20, 27, 50, 57, 70, 72-74 

Mackinac, 220, 233, 240 

Macon Bill No. 2, 206, 207 

Madison, James, Federalist leader, 

132, 134, 142-144; Republican 

leader, 146. 147, 162, 164, 172, 

178, 193; President, 201-208, 212- 

215, 229, 233-239 
Maine. 67, 122, 192, 238, 240 
Manufacturers, British, 20, 21, 132, 

195, 201, 212. 213, 243 
Maryland, 15, 62, 100, 105, 135, 139, 

192, 214 
Massachusetts, 41, 45, 46, 51, 68- 

61, 122, 135, 137, 141 
Military Policy, American, 27, 66, 

79, 80, 84, 87, 107, 218. 224, 233, 

235 
Military Policy, British, 77, 85, 88, 

92, 94, 99, 108, 112, 113, 216, 229, 

238 
Militia, American, 61, 62, 77-85, 

164, 220-222 



Ministries. British, Bute, 35, 40; 
Grenville, 28, 35, 43; First Rock- 
ingham, 36, 39;iGrafton, 39-45; 
North, 47-56, 60, 67-77, 88, 95- 
98, 114-117, 151; Second Rock- 
ingham, 117, 119; Shelburne, 119- 

125, 152, 154; Coalition, 125, 

126, 152-154; Pitt, 153, 154, 159, 
163-170; Addington, 171; Sec- 
ond Pitt, 171, 192, 193; Lord 
GrenviUe, 193, 196, 197; Port- 
land, 197, 201, 207; Perceval, 
207, 211-215; Liverpool, 212- 
216, 237-241 

Mississippi River, 105, 122, 157, 229 
Mississippi, Navigation of, 123, 156, 

157, 168, 184, 241 
Monroe, James, 172, 173, 186, 195, 

196 
Montgomery, General Richard, 67, 

79 
Montreal, 67, 226 
Morgan, Daniel. 67, 89, 104 
Morris, Robert, 78, 106, 133, 134 

Navigation Acts, 22-24, 29, 38, 55, 

71, 132, 149, 152, 154 
Navy, American, 164, 175, 217, 219, 

222-226. 228. 230, 232. 242 
Navy, British, in Revolution. 75. 98, 

99; in French wars, 162, 189, 190, 

198, 199; in war of 1812, 216, 

222-232, 242 
Neutral Commerce, 163, 191, 198, 

215 
New England, 14, 15, 17, 21, 25, 60, 

62, 84, 108, 197-201, 223, 227, 229 
New Hampshire, 136-138 
New Jersey, 83-89, 100, 139 
New Orleans, 168, 184, 229, 231, 

238, 242, 243 
Newport, 100, 102, 109, 110 
New York, 41, 42. 60, 71, 88, 105, 

135-141, 147, 169, 185, 214, 230, 

238 
New York City, 33, 81-84, 91, 92, 

99-102, 110, 112, 126, 179 
Niagara River, 220, 221, 228, 240 
Non-importation Agreements, 36, 

42, 200 
Non-importation Act, 195-199 
Non-intercourse Act, 202, 206, 213 
North, Lord, Tory leader, 43-55, 

60, 61, 73-75; in Revolutionary 

war, 77, 96, 97, 115-117, 152 
Northwest Territory, 105, 136, 158 

Ohio, 158. 159. 185, 211, 220, 221 
Orders in Council, 193, 197, 198, 
204, 207, 211-214, 243-246 



INDEX 



^55 



Oswald, Richard, 119-121 
Otis, James, 27, S2 

Parliament, during Revolution, 10, 

1^2, 25, 35-38, 42, 46, 52, 55-61, 

68, 72, 75, 96, 114-116; after 

1783, 121, 154, 203, 212, 237, 247 

Peaceful Coercion, 194, 195, 202, 

206, 208, 213 
Pennsylvania. 15, 38, 51, 62, 71, 90, 

100, 110, 136, 164, 185, 187, 214 
Perceval, Spenser, 197, 207, 212 
Perry, Commander O. H., 224 
Philadelphia, 56, 84-92, 99, 137 
Pinckney, C. C, 173, 174 
Pitt, William, Earl of Chatham, 9, 

36, 38-40, 52, 60, 96-98 
Pitt, William, 144, 148, 152-154, 

171, 176, 189, 192 
Plattsburg, Battle of, 230, 240, 243 
Political Ideals, American, 14, 18, 
81, 37-39, 49, 55, 74, 78, 107, 129, 
130, 135-138, 143-148, 168, 169, 
181, 195, 235 
Pownall, Thomas, 41, 46, 62 
Prevost, Sir George, 230, 231, 234 
Privateers, American, 108, 160- 

162, 217, 222, 232 
Proclamation of 1763, 30, 122 
Proctor, Colonel Henry, 221, 225 

Quasi-War, 175, 178, 179 
Quebec, 57, 67, 80 
Quebec Act, 54, 56 

Raiding Policy, British, 99-104, 109, 

110, 124 
Randolph, Edmund, 162, 164, 172 
Reign of Terror, French, 159, 161 
Representatives, House of, 162, 164, 

180, 211 
Republican party, origin, 144-148, 

162, 164, 169-175; in power, 181- 

183, 201, 203, 208-211, 236 
Restraining Acts, 60, 68, 74 
Rhode Island, 15, 48, 102, 138, 141 
Rights of Colonists, 33, 37, 42, 57, 

71 
Rochambeau, Comte de, 102, 110, 

112 
Rockingham, Marquis of, 117, 119 
Rule of 1756, 163, 166, 190, 192, 204 
Rutledge, John, 57, 78, 83 

St. Clair, General Arthur, 159 
St. Leger, Colonel B., 89, 90 
San Domingo, 156, 185, 186 
Sandwich, Earl of, 53, 68, 75, 77, 98. 

114 
Saratoga, Surrender at, 91 



Savannah, 101, 110, 112 

Scott, Sir William, 192 

Sea-Power, French, 98-101. 109- 

112, 114 
Secession, 187, 201, 234, 235 
Sedition Act, 17G-178, 180 
Seizures, British, 162, 163, 166. 200. 

202, 243 
Seizures, French, 173, 174, 202. 205. 

207 
Senate, United States, 167. 179. 186. 

196, 242 

Shays' Rebellion, 137 

Sheffield, Lord, 150, 151, 154. 191. 

197, 245 ... 
Shelburne, Earl of, 117-123, 152- 

154 
Sherman, Roger, 78, 134 
Shipowners, British, 191-193, 201, 

215 
Smuggling, Colonial, 24, 25 
Spain, in Revolution, 98, 108, 117- 
122; diplomatic relations, 157- 
159, 168, 185, 186, 194, 215, 227 
Stamp Act, 30-33, 200 
States, American, 78, 80. 87. 104. 

106, 140 
States Rights, 146, 178, 234 
Stephen, James, 191, 197, 207, 243 
Sugar Act, 25, 29, 31 
Supreme Court, 187 
■ ^ 

Talleyrand, 174, 177 
Tarleton, Colonel B., 103, 110 
Taxation, Parliamentary, 33, 36-38 
Tea-Party, Boston, 47-50 
Tecumseh, 210, 211, 220-225 
Tennessee, 158, 185, 211, 224 
Ticonderoga, Fort, 62, 81, 89 
Tories, American, in Revolution, 
59, 63-73, 89, 100-104, 110; in 
treaty of, 1783, 123-127, 147, 158 
Tories, English, 12, 39, 43-48; op- 
ponents of colonies, 56, 72, 73, 96, 
97, 113-117; in control, 121, 151, 
152, 165, 170, 171, 176; unfriendly 
to United States, 197-208, 212, 
215, 236, 238, 240, 247 
Townshend, Charles, 40-43 
Townshend Duties, 40-47, 200 
Treaties, 1763, 9, 28; 1778, 95, 98; 
1783, 117-126, 149-152, 158; 
1794, 164-172; 193, 196; 1795, 
168, 184; 1803, 186; 1814, 242; 
1818, 244 
Trenton, Battle of, 86, 112 
Triangular Trade, 24, 25, 31, 132 

Union of Colonies, 63, 73, 79 
United States, in diplomacy, 94, 



256 



INDEX 



117-120, 132; under Federalists, 
139-160, 165, 166, 170-180; 
under Republicans, 182, 186, 190- 
200, 208, 209, 213-217, 227, 232. 
238, 242-248 

Valley Forge, 92, 106 

Vergennes, Comte de, 93-95, 118- 

125 
Vermont, 136, 214, 238 
Virginia, in Revolution, 46, 67, 100- 

105, 109, 110; after 1783, 135- 

147, 177, 178 

Wars, French and Indian, 9, 26, 27; 

of Revolution, 75-113; with 

France, 175, 177; of 1812, 215-235 
Washington City, 229, 230, 238 
Washington, George, Commander, 

42, 57, 64, 66, 79-92, 99, 100, 107- 

112, 126; in retirement, 132, 134; 

President, 142-147, 159-164, 167, 

172, 173, 178 
Wayne, General Anthony, 79, 159, 

164 
WellingtOD, Duke of, 241, 243 



West, Frontier spirit in, 209, 214. 
218 . . . 

West India Planters, 25, 150, 167. 
191 

West Indies, British, before 1783. 
9, 21-27, 99-101, 108, 110, 112, 
125; after 1783, 132, 149-155, 
166, 167, 245, 246 

West Indies, French, trade with, 
25, 27, 81, 156, 163, 167, 190- 
192, 196 

Whig Party, British, in control, 12, 
13, 35-40; defenders of colonists, 
44-46, 51, 52, 60, 61, 68, 69, 73. 
96, 97, 113-117, 120, 121; in op- 
position, 152, 165, 196, 198, 203. 
236, 247 

Whig Party, in colonies, 56-63, 67. 
178 

Wilkes, John, 44, 45 

Wilkinson, General James, 225, 226 

X. Y. Z. affair, 174, 175 

Yorktown, Surrender at. 111. 113. 
116,160 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




